Though as time went on and the days lengthened into weeks, Al was obliged to confess to himself that the business possessed few attractions for him, yet he applied himself industriously to mastering its details, feeling not only a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that he was winning his employer's confidence and approval, but a still deeper pride in the fact that he was becoming able to bear a very material share of the modest living expenses of himself and his mother and sister. Although Mr. White imagined that Al's rapid progress in familiarizing himself with his work was due to a natural aptitude for the business, the fact was that he was simply determined to get ahead and earn as much money as possible. A constant mental unrest, due chiefly to his suspense over Tommy's fate, possessed him, and he tried to soothe it as far as might be by becoming absorbed in his work. Beyond his natural anxiety for his brother, however, though he did not exactly realize it, was the repugnance to obligation, the unquenchable desire to have his mother and sister independent, which was a characteristic inherited from his sturdy father. He very soon qualified himself to take his place as a shipping clerk, thus securing an advance in pay, which enabled him still further to relieve his uncle's unwonted burdens. Thus the Autumn went by and Mrs. Briscoe began to look impatiently for news from General Sibley, for they had been able to gather something in a fragmentary way from the St. Louis papers of the events which had taken place in Minnesota since they had left there, and they knew that Colonel Sibley had been made a brigadier general of volunteers for his skilful conduct of the Indian campaign. At length one day the long-looked-for letter came. Mr. Colton brought it out from his office, and with palpitating hearts the family gathered around Al while he read it aloud; for Mrs. Briscoe was too much agitated to read it. The letter was dated at Fort Snelling and was in General Sibley's own handwriting. It read as follows: _Mrs. Thomas Briscoe, St. Louis, Mo._ MY DEAR MADAM: It is with the deepest regret that I am obliged to inform you that thus far our efforts to recover your young son from his Indian captors have been unsuccessful. Late in September we rescued about two hundred and fifty white prisoners near the Yellow Medicine but he was not among them. We have also captured about two thousand of the Indian miscreants who were prominent in the late outbreak and massacre, and they are now being tried by a court martial. Many of them are being convicted and will be executed. Among them, however, is no individual satisfying the description of the captor of your son Thomas, as given to me by your elder son.