She rose, gathering her wrap about her. Grant rose as she did. His manners were very nice, and he walked into the hall and took up his hat to go down to the car with Mrs. Whipple. It was dusk, and a man was going through the grounds lighting the lamps. Mrs. Whipple talked with her usual vivacity of the New Hampshire school which the boy had attended, and of the trip he was about to make with his father and sister. They stood at the curb in front of the Porter gate waiting for her car. A buggy stopped near them and a man alighted and stood talking to a companion who remained seated. "Is this the way to Mr. Porter's stable?" one of the men called to them. "Yes," Grant answered, as he stepped into the street to signal the car. The man who had alighted got back into the buggy as if to drive into the grounds. The street light overhead hissed and then burned brightly above them. Mrs. Whipple turned and saw one of the men plainly. The car came to a stop; Grant helped her aboard, and waved his hand to her as she gained the platform. At nine o'clock a general alarm was sent out in Clarkson that Grant Porter had disappeared. CHAPTER XXXIV JOHN SAXTON SUGGESTS A CLUE Wheaton sat in his room at The Bachelors' the next evening, clutching a copy of a _Gazette_ extra in which a few sentences under long headlines gave the latest rumor about the mysterious disappearance of Grant Porter. Within a fortnight he had received several warnings from his brother marking his itinerary eastward. Snyder was evidently moving with a fixed purpose; and, as Wheaton had received brief notes from him couched in phrases of amiable irony, postmarked Denver, and then, within a few days, Kansas City, he surmised that his brother was traveling on fast trains and therefore with money in his purse.