Then I quickly turned and in another minute I was hurrying down the Madison Street hill to the Hinckley Block. In every step I took nearer my home there came a keener and more tense pulling at my heart strings--a feeling that something had happened in my own home. It was no wonder that the elevator boy in the Hinckley Block was dumb-founded to see me rush across Second Avenue and half way up the stairs to the second floor before he could call to me, saying he would take me up in the car if I was not in too big a hurry. The next moment I was in my rooms, and for the life of me I cannot begin to describe their looks. My clothes and personal belongings were scattered all over the room, my big trunk had been emptied of its contents and was missing. The bureau drawers were empty and the place really looked like a Kansas rancher’s house after a cyclone. On the dresser was a little note--in Bera’s handwriting, held down by a bronze paperweight surmounted by a tiny, but beautiful miniature of a woman’s form. It was Bera’s last birthday gift to me. “We have gone to Alaska with Swiftwater and Mr. Hathaway. Do not worry, mama, as when we get there we will look out for your hotel.” “BERA.” That was Bera’s note. I looked at my watch. It was 7:25 and I knew the “Humboldt” sailed at 8 o’clock. I rushed down four flights of stairs, never thinking of the elevator, gained the street and hailed a passing hackman. “You can have this if you get to the ‘Humboldt’ at Schwabacher’s dock before she sails!” I cried as the cabby drew his team to the curb, and then I handed him a ten dollar gold piece. Whipping his horses to a gallop, the hackman drove at a furious pace down First Avenue to Spring Street and thence to the dock. He all but knocked over a policeman as the horses under his whip surged through the crowd which stood around the dock waiting for the departure of the “Humboldt.” “My two daughters are on that boat and Swiftwater Bill Gates has stolen them from me!” I shouted as I grabbed hold of the arm of a big policeman near the entrance to the dock. “I want you to get those girls off that boat before she sails, no matter what happens!” In another minute the policeman was fighting his way with all the force of his 250 pounds through the mob of five thousand people that hung around the gang plank of the “Humboldt.” The ship’s lights were burning brightly and everybody was laughing and talking, and a few women crying as they said goodby to husbands, sweethearts or friends aboard the ship. It was just exactly ten minutes before sailing time when we finally made our way to the main deck through the crowd. I fairly shouted to the captain on the bridge: “My two daughters are on this ship hidden away, and I want them taken off this boat before you leave!” Capt. Bateman looked at me a moment as if he wanted to throw me overboard. “Who are your daughters and what are they doing on my ship?”