Janice Day

CHAPTER XVII

CHRISTMAS NEWS

It bade fair to be an old-fashioned northern New England winter. Janice Day had never seen anything like this in the prairie country from which she had come.

There three or four big storms, the traces of which soon melted, had been considered a "hard" winter. Here in Poketown the hillside was made white before Thanksgiving, and then one snow after another sifted down upon the mountains. Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them.

The lake ice became so thick that the steamboat could no longer make her trips. Walky Dexter became mail carrier and brought the mail from Middletown every other day.

Janice found the time not at all tedious in its flight. There really was so much to do!

As for real fun—winter sports had been little more than a name to the girl from the Middle West before this winter. The boys had got their bob-sleds out before Thanksgiving. Toboggans were not popular in Poketown, for the coasting-places were too rough. At first Janice was really afraid to join the hilarious parties of boys and girls on some of the slides.

Marty, however, owned a big sled, and she did not want her cousin to lose his good opinion of her. He had declared that she was almost as good as a boy, and Janice successfully hid from him her fear of the sport that really is a royal one.

A favorite slide of the Poketown young people was from the head of the street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was located, down the hill, past the decayed dock on which Janice had first seen little Lottie Drugg, and on across the frozen inlet to the wooded point in which Lottie declared the echo dwelt.

When the whole lake froze solidly, the course of the sleds was continued across its level surface as far as the momentum from the hill would carry the bobs. There was skating here, too; and many were the moonlight nights on which a regular carnival was held at the foot of these hilly streets.

Walky Dexter owned a great sledge, too, and when he attached two span of horses to this, and the roads were even half broken, he could drive parties of Poketown young people all over the county, on moonlight sleigh-rides. Janice was invited to go on several of these, and she did so. Her heart was not always attuned to the hilarity of her companions; but she did not allow herself to become morose, or sad, in public.

Yet the gnawing worriment about her father was in her mind continually. It was an effort for her to be lively and cheerful when the fate of Mr. Broxton Day was so uncertain.

Her more thoughtful comrades realized the girl's secret feelings. She was treated with more consideration by the rough boys who were Marty's mates, than were the other girls.

"Say, that Janice girl is all right!" one rough fellow said to Marty Day. "I see her scouring the papers in the readin'-room the other night, and she was lookin' for some news of her father, of course."

"I reckon so," Marty answered. "We don't know nothing about what's become of him. They stand 'em up against a wall down there in Mexico and shoot 'em just for fun—so Walky Dexter says. Dad says he never expects to hear of Uncle Brocky alive ag'in."

"And yet that girl keeps up her pluck! She's all right," declared the other. "Gee! suppose she should come smack upon the story of her father's death some night there in the readin'-room? Wouldn't that be tough?"

From this conversation sprang the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established. Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico; especially was the news searched for any mention of the lost Mr. Day.

Sometimes, when the news story suggested one of these horrible executions, the whole paper was "lost in the mail." At least, when it was inquired for, that was the stock reply. The boys made sure that Janice should never see such blood-chilling accounts of Mexican activities.

It drew toward Christmas. Janice had another sorrow, of which she never said a word. Her spending money was nearly gone. She saw the bottom of her narrow purse just as the season of giving approached!

There were so many things she wanted to do for all her friends, both in Poketown and back at Greensboro. Some few little things she had made, for her fingers were both nimble and dexterous. But "homemade" presents would not do for Uncle Jason, Aunt 'Mira, Marty, and a dozen other people towards whom she felt kindly.

She had begun to worry, too, about what would finally happen to her if her father never came back! How long would the bank continue to pay her board to Uncle Jason? And how was she to get clothes, and other necessary things?

In the midst of these mental tribulations came a letter from the Greensboro bank, addressed to Janice herself. In it was the cashier's check for twenty-five dollars, and a brief note from the official himself, stating that Mr. Day, before ever he had separated from his daughter, had looked forward to her Christmas shopping and instructed the bank to send on the fifteenth of December this sum for her personal use.

"Dear, dear Daddy! He forgot nothing," sobbed Janice, when she read this note, and kissed the check which seemed to have come warm from her father's hand. "Whatever shall I do all through my life long without him, if he never comes back?"

Christmas Eve came. The clouds had been gathering above the higher peaks of the Green Mountains all day, and, as evening dropped, the snow began falling.

Janice and Marty went down town together after supper. Even Poketown showed some special light and life at this season. Dusty store windows were rejuvenated; candles, and trees, and tinsel, and wreathes blossomed all along High Street. Janice was proud to know that the brightest windows, and the most tastefully dressed, were Hopewell Drugg's. And in the middle of the biggest window of Drugg's store was a beautiful wax doll, which she and Miss 'Rill had themselves dressed. On Christmas morning that doll was to be found by Lottie Drugg, fast asleep with its head on the blind child's own pillow!

Janice had to run around just to take a last peek at the window and the doll, while Marty went to the post office for the evening mail. Papers and magazines were due in that mail for the reading-room; and, despite the fact that the snow was falling more heavily every minute, there would be some of the "regulars" in the reading-room, glad to see the papers.

Janice had turned her own subscription for the New York daily over to the reading-room association; and when she wanted to read the New York paper herself, she went to the files to look at it. Weeks had passed now since there had been anything printed about that district in Chihuahua where her father's mine was located.

Coming back, down the hill from Drugg's, Janice saw that Marty had not gone at once into the reading-room and lit the lamps. Her cousin was standing in the light of the drug-store window, a bundle of papers and magazines under his arm, and one paper spread before his eyes. He seemed to be reading eagerly.

"Hey, Marty! come on in and read! It's awful cold out here!" she shouted to him, shaking the latch of the reading-room door with her mittened hand.

Marty, roused, looked up guiltily, and thrust the quickly folded paper into the breast of his jacket. "Aw, I'm comin'," he said.

But when he came to open the door Janice noticed that he seemed to fumble the key greatly, and he kept his face turned from her gaze.

"What's the matter, Marty?" she asked, lightly.

"Matter? Ain't nothin' the matter," grunted the boy.

"Why, Marty! you're crying!" gasped Janice, suddenly.

"Ain't neither!" growled the boy, wiping his rough coat sleeve across his eyes. "Snow's blowed in 'em."

"That's more than snow, Marty," was Janice's confident remark.

"Huh!" snorted Marty. "Girls allus know so much!"

He seemed to have suddenly acquired "a grouch." So Janice went cheerily about the room, singing softly to herself, and lighting the lamps. Nobody else had arrived, for it was still early in the evening.

Marty stole softly to the stove. The fire had been banked, and the room was quite chilly. He rattled the dampers, opened them, and then, with a side glance at his cousin, pulled the paper from within the breast of his jacket and thrust it in upon the black coals before he closed the stove door.

"Where's the New York paper, Marty?" Janice was asking, as she arranged the Montpelier and the Albany papers on their files.

"Didn't come," grunted Marty, and picked up the empty coal hod. "I got to git some coal," he added, and dashed outside into the snow.

Instantly the girl hastened across the room. She jerked the stove door open. There lay the folded paper, just beginning to brown in the heat of the generating gas. She snatched it from the fire and, hearing the outer door opened again, thrust the paper inside her blouse.

It wasn't Marty, but was one of the other boys. She did not understand why her cousin should have told her an untruth about the New York paper. But she did not want an open rupture with him here and now—and before other people.

"I'm going right home," she said to Marty, when he came back with the replenished coal hod. "It's snowing real hard."

"Sure. There won't be many of the fellows around to-night, anyway. Peter here will stay all evening and lock up—if Mr. Haley don't come. Won't you, Pete?"

"Sure," was the reply.

"Then I'll go along with you," declared Marty, who wasn't half as ashamed to escort a girl on the street nowadays as he had been a few months before.

Now, Janice had intended running over to Hopewell Drugg's store and looking at the paper Marty had tried to destroy. She did not for a moment suspect what was in it, or why her cousin had told her a falsehood about it. But she saw she would have to defer the examination of the news-sheet.

"All right. Come along, Marty," she agreed, with assumed carelessness.

The boy was very moody. He stole glances at her only when he thought she was not looking. Never had Janice seen the hobbledehoy act so strangely!

They plowed through the increasing snow up Hillside Avenue, and the snow fell so rapidly that the girl was really glad she had come home. She entered first, Marty staying out on the porch a long time, stamping and scraping his boots.

When he came in he still had nothing to say. He pulled his seat to the far side of the glowing stove and sat there, hands in his pockets and chin on his breast.

"What's the matter with you, Marty?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "You ain't sick, be ye?"

"Nop," growled her son.

That was about all they could get out of him—monosyllables—until Janice retired to her own room. The girl was so anxious to get upstairs and look at that paper she had recovered from the reading-room fire, that she went early. When she had bidden the others good night and mounted to her room, however, she did something she had never done before. She unlatched her door again softly and tiptoed out to the landing at the top of the stairs, to listen.

Marty had suddenly come to life. She heard his voice, low and tense, dominating the other voices in the kitchen. She could not hear a word he said, but suddenly Aunt 'Mira broke out with: "Oh! my soul and body, Marty! It ain't so—don't say it's so!"

"Be still, 'Mira," commanded Uncle Jason's quaking voice. "Let the boy tell it."

She heard nothing more but the murmur of her cousin's voice and her aunt's soft crying. Janice stole back into her cold room. She shook terribly, but not with the chill of the frosty air.

Her trembling fingers found a match and ignited the wick of the skeleton lamp. She had, ere this, manufactured a pretty paper shade for it, and this threw the stronger radiance of the light upon a round spot on the bureau. She drew out the scorched paper and unfolded it in that light.

She did not have to search long. The article she feared to see was upon the first page of the paper. The black headlines were so plain that she scanned them at a single glance:

CHAPTER XVIII

"THE FLY-BY-NIGHT"

Janice Day could never have told how long she sat there, elbows on the bureau, eyes glued to those black lines on the newspaper page. The heat of the tall oil lamp almost scorched her face; but her back was freezing. There was never anything invented—not even a cold storage plant—as cold as the ordinary New England farmhouse bedchamber!

But the girl felt neither the lamp's heat, nor the deadly chill of the room. For a long time she could not even read beyond the mere headlines of the article telegraphed from Cida.

This seemed to be conclusive. It was the end of all hope for Janice—or, so she then believed. There seemed not a single chance that her father could have escaped. No news had been good news, after all. This story in the paper was all too evil—all too certainly evil!

By and by she managed to concentrate her numbed mind upon the story itself. There is no need to repeat it here in full; when Janice had read it twice she could not easily forget its most unimportant phrase.

The man, John Makepiece, with Broxton Day, of Granadas district, had been held "incommunicado" for months by the bandit, Raphele. This leader had fought with his commando for the Constitutionalists at the battle of Granadas; but he was really an outlaw and cutthroat, and many of his followers were brigands like him.

The prisoners had been held for ransom. Several of the Mexican captives of Raphele had managed to pay their way out of the villain's clutches; but both Americans refused to apply to their friends for ransom. Indeed, they did not trust to Raphele's protestations, believing that if any money at all for their release was forthcoming, it would only whet the villain's cupidity and cause Raphele to make larger demands.

Raphele feared now to remain longer in that part of Chihuahua. His unlawful acts had called down upon his head the serious strictures of the Constitutionalist leaders. They were about to abolish his command.

In his rage and bloodthirstiness he had declared his intention of either destroying his remaining prisoners, or sending them to their homes crippled. But the two Americans he treated differently. With fiendish delight in seeing those two brave men suffer, he had commanded them to cast lots to see which should be escorted beyond the lines, while the other was marched to the edge of an open grave, there to find a sure and sudden end under the rain of bullets from a "firing squad."

John Makepiece had drawn the long straw. There was no help for it. He rode away on a sorry nag that was given him, and from a distant height saw the other American marched out to the place of burial, and even waited to see the puff of smoke from the guns as the soldiers fired at the doomed man.

The details were horrible. The effect upon Janice was a most unhappy one. For more than an hour she sat there before her bureau in the cold room, her gaze fastened upon the story in the newspaper.

Then the family came up to bed. Aunt 'Mira saw the light under the girl's door.

"Janice! Janice!" she whispered. "Whatever is the matter with you?"

Aunt 'Mira had been crying and her voice was still husky. When she pushed open the door a little way and saw the girl, she gasped out in alarm.

"Oh, my dear!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira. "Do you know?"

Janice could not then speak. She pointed to the paper, and when Aunt 'Mira folded her in her arms, the girl burst into tears—tears that relieved her overcharged heart.

"You run down an' open up the drafts of that stove again, Jason," exclaimed the fleshy lady, for once taking command of affairs. "This child's got a chill. She's got ter have suthin' hot, or she'll be sick on our hands—poor dear! She's been a-settin' here readin' all that stuff Marty told us was in the paper—I do believe. Ain't that so, child?"

Janice, sobbing on her broad bosom, intimated that it was a fact.

"That boy ain't no good. He didn't burn up the paper at all. She got holt on it," declared Uncle Jason, quite angry.

"Oh, it wasn't—wasn't Marty's fault," sobbed Janice. "And I had to know! I had to know!"

They got her downstairs, and Mrs. Day sent "the men folks" to bed. She insisted upon putting Janice's feet into a mustard-water bath, and made her swallow fully a pint of steaming hot "composition." Two hours later Janice was able to go to bed, and, because she hoped against hope, and was determined not to believe the story until it was thoroughly confirmed, she fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke on Christmas morning, it was with a full and clear knowledge of what had happened, and a pang of desolation and grief such as had swept over her the night before. But she set herself to hope as long as she could, and to suppress any untoward exhibition of her sorrow and pain, while she made every effort to find out the truth about her father.

The family was very gentle with the heartsick girl. Even Marty showed by his manner that he sympathized with her. And she could not forget that he had tried his very best to keep the knowledge of the awful crime from her.

Janice brought down with her to the breakfast table the little presents which she had prepared for her uncle, and aunt, and cousin. There were no boisterous "Merry Christmases" in the old Day house that morning; even Uncle Jason wiped his eyes after saying grace at the breakfast table.

After all, Janice was the most self-controlled of the four. She said, midway of the meal:

"I cannot believe all of that dreadful story in the paper. I want to know more of the particulars."

"Oh, hush! hush!" begged her aunt. "I read it. It's too horrible! I wouldn't want to know any more, child."

"But I must know more—if there's more to be known. I believe I can telegraph to Cida. At least, Mr. Buchanan at Juarez may know something more about this man's story. I wish there was either telegraph, or telephone, in Poketown."

"Gee, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Nobody could git over to Middletown to-day. Not even Walky Dexter. The wind blowed great guns last night, and the roads are full of drifts."

"But it doesn't look so from my window," said his cousin.

"Pshaw! all you can see is the lake. Snow blowed right across the ice, an' never scarcely touched it. But there's heaps and heaps in the road. Say! we got ter dig out Hillside Avenue—ain't we, Dad?"

"A lot of snow fell in the night—that's a fact," admitted Uncle Jason.

"But I see somebody coming up the street now," cried Janice, jumping up eagerly from the table.

It was Walky Dexter, plowing his way through the drifts in hip boots.

"This is sure a white Christmas!" he bawled from the gate. "I got suthin' for you, Janice. Hi tunket! can't git through this here gate, so I'll climb over it. Wal, Janice, a Merry Christmas to ye!" he added, as he stumped up upon the porch, and handed her a little package from Miss 'Rill.

"I am afraid not a very merry one, Walky," said the girl, shaking his mittened hand. "Come inside by the fire. Uncle Jason, where is that paper? I want Mr. Dexter to read it."

"Oh, dear, me!" murmured Walky, when he saw the heading of the Mexican telegraph despatch. Then, with his fur cap cocked over one ear, and his boots steaming on the stove hearth, he read the story through. "Oh, dear, me!" he said again.

"I want you to try to get me to Middletown, Walky," Janice said, with a little catch in her voice. "Right away."

"Mercy on us, child! a day like this?" gasped her aunt.

"Why, the storm's over," said Janice, firmly. "And I must send some telegrams and get answers. Oh, I must! I must!"

"Hoity-toity, Miss Janice!" broke in Walky. "'Must' is a hard driver, I know. But I tell ye, we couldn't win through the drif's. Why, I been as slow as a toad funeral gettin' up here from High Street. The ox teams won't be out breakin' the paths before noon, and they won't get out of town before to-morrer, that's sure, Miss."

"Oh, my dear!" cried her aunt, again. "You mustn't think of doing such a thing. Wait."

"I can't wait," declared Janice, with pallid face and trembling lip, but her hazel eyes dry and hard. "I tell you I must know more."

"I can't take ye to Middletown, Janice. Not till the roads is broke," Walky said, firmly, shaking his head.

"Hi! here comes somebody else up the road," shouted Marty, from outside.

Janice ran, hoping to see a team. It was only a single figure struggling through the snow.

"By jinks!" exclaimed Marty. "It's the teacher."

"It is Mr. Haley," murmured Janice.

The young collegian, well dressed for winter weather, waved his hand when he saw them, and struggled on. He carried a long parcel and when he went through the more than waist-high drifts he held this high above his head.

"Hi, there!" yelled Marty, waving his mittened hands. "Ain't you lost over here, Mr. Haley?"

"I see somebody has been before me," laughed Nelson Haley, following Walky Dexter's tracks over the fence and up to the cleared porch. "How do you do, Miss Janice? A very happy Christmas to you!"

"Thank you for your good wish, Mr. Haley," she replied, soberly. "But it is not going to be a very glad Christmas for me, I fear. Oh! is it for me?" for he had thrust the long pasteboard box into her arms.

"If you will accept them, Miss Janice," returned the young man, with a bow.

"Open it, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Let's see."

"I—I——"

"Lemme do it for you," cried Marty, the curious.

He broke the string, yanked off the paper, and Janice herself lifted the cover. A great breath of spicy odor rushed out at her from the box.

"Oh! Mr. Haley! Cut flowers! Hothouse flowers! Wherever did you get them?" cried Janice, drawing aside the tissue paper and burying her face in the fragrant, dewy blossoms.

"Aw—flowers! Huh!" grunted Marty, in disappointment.

"I am glad you like them so," said Nelson Haley. "Marty, I didn't bring them to you. But here is something that will please you better, I know," and he put into the boy's hand a combination pocketknife that would have delighted any out-of-door youth. "Only you must give me a penny for it. I don't believe in giving sharp-edged presents to friends. It cuts friendship, they say," and the collegian laughed.

"Golly! that's a dandy!" acknowledged Marty. "Here's your cent. Thanks! See what Mr. Haley gimme, Maw!" and he rushed into the house to display his treasure.

Haley and Janice were left alone in a sheltered corner of the porch.

"Oh, Mr. Haley," the girl repeated. "How lovely they are! And how kind of you to get them for me! How did you ever secure such fresh cut flowers 'way up here? Nobody has a hothouse in Poketown."

"They come from Colonel Van Dyne's place at the Landing."

"'Way down there!" exclaimed Janice, in wonder. "Why, it's farther than Middletown. That's where I took the boat to get here?"

"I guess so, Miss Janice."

"But—but the boats aren't running," she cried, in amazement. "And these flowers are so fresh."

"My boat is running," and Haley laughed. "I brought them up for you yesterday afternoon. Got in just before it began to snow hard."

"Mr. Haley! The lake is frozen solidly!"

"Sure," he laughed. "But my boat sails on the ice. Didn't you hear that I had built the Fly-by-Night? It's an ice boat—and it's a dandy! I hope to take you out in it——"

"An ice boat?" cried Janice. "Oh! you can—you shall! You can take me to the Landing. There is a telegraph office there, isn't there?"

"Why—why——Yes! At the railroad station," the young man admitted, rather amazed.

Janice stepped up to him, with the pasteboard box of flowers in her arms, and her eyes shining in expectation.

"Oh, Mr. Haley! You must take me down there. Won't you?"

Marty ran out again, and heard what she said. "Where you goin'?" he demanded. "Mr. Haley can't ice boat you to Middletown."

"To the Landing," begged Janice.

"By jinks! so he can," shouted the boy. "Lemme go, too, Mr. Haley. You'll want somebody to 'tend sheet on the Fly-by-Night."

"But I do not understand?" queried the teacher, staring from one to the other of the excited pair.

"You—you tell him, Marty!" said Janice, turning toward the door. "I must put these beautiful flowers in water. Come in, Mr. Haley, and get warm."

But the teacher remained out there on the windswept porch while he listened to what Marty had to tell. The girl's trouble struck home to the generous-hearted young man. He was moved deeply for her—especially upon a day like this when, in the nature of things, all persons should be joyous and glad.

"I will take you to the Landing, if the breeze holds fair," he declared and he pooh-poohed Mrs. Day's fears that there was any danger in sailing the ice boat. He had come up from the Landing himself the night before in an hour and a half.

"What a dreadful, dreadful way to spend Christmas Day!" moaned Aunt 'Mira, as she helped Janice to dress. "Something's likely to happen to that ice boat. I've seen 'em racing on the lake. Them folks jest take their lives in their han's—that's right!"

"I'll make the boys take care," Janice promised.

Aunt 'Mira saw them go with fear and trembling, and immediately ensconced herself in the window of Janice's room, with a shawl around her shoulders, to watch the flight of the ice boat after it got under way down at the dock.

Janice, and the teacher and Marty had fairly to wade to the shore of the lake. The drifts were very deep on land; but, as Marty said, the wind had swept the ice almost bare. Here and there a ridge of snow had formed upon the glistening surface; but Mr. Haley made light of these obstructions.

"The Fly-by-Night will just go humming through those, Miss Janice. Don't you fear," he said.

There were few people abroad in High Street, for it was not yet mid-forenoon. Most who were out were busily engaged shoveling paths. The three young folks got down to the dock, and Haley and Marty turned up the heavy body of the ice boat and swept the snow off.

There was a good deal of a drift of snow right along the edge of the lake; but they pushed the ice boat out beyond this windrow, with Janice's help, and then stepped the mast and bent on the heavy sail. It was a cross-T boat, with a short nose and a single sail. The steersman had a box in the rear and in this there was room for Janice to ride, too. The sheet-tender likewise ballasted the boat by lying out on one or the other end of the crosspiece.

There was a keen wind, not exactly fair for the trip down the lake; yet their sheet filled nicely on the longer tack, and the Fly-by-Night swept out from the Poketown dock at a very satisfactory speed.

"We'll hit the Landing in two hours, at the longest, Miss Janice," declared Nelson Haley. "Keep your head down. This wind cuts like needles. Too bad you haven't a mask of some kind."

He was wearing his motorcycle goggles, while Marty had one of those plush caps, that pull down all around one's face so that nothing but the eyes peer out, and was doing very well.

As the ice yacht gathered speed, Janice found that she could not face the wind. Nor could she look ahead, for the sun was shining boldly now, and the glare of it on the ice was all but blinding.

The timbers of the boat groaned and shook. The runners whined over the ice with an ever-increasing note. Ice-dust rose in a thin cloud from the sharp shoes, and the sunlight, in which the dust danced, flecked the mist with dazzling, rainbow colors.

When the ice boat came about, it was with a leap and bound that seemed almost to capsize the craft. Janice had never traveled so fast before—or so she believed. It fairly took her breath, and she clung to the hand-holds with all her strength.

"Hi, Janice!" yelled Marty, grinning from ear to ear. "How d'ye like it? Gittin' scaret?"

She had to shake her head negatively and smile. But to tell the truth there was an awful sinking in her heart, and when one runner went suddenly over a hummock and tipped the ice boat, she could scarcely keep from voicing her alarm.

CHAPTER XIX

CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL!

Janice Day possessed more self-control than most girls of her age. She would not, even when her heart was sick with apprehension because of the story in the newspaper, give her cousin the opportunity of saying that she showed the white feather.

She lay close to the beam of the ice boat, clung to the hand-holds, and made no outcry as the craft flew off upon the other tack. Had the wind been directly astern, the course of the Fly-by-Night would have been smoother. It was the terrific bounding, and the groaning of the timbers while the boom swung over and the canvas slatted, that really frightened the girl.

It seemed as though the mast must be wrenched out of the boat by the force of the high wind filling the canvas. And the shrieking of the runners! Janice realized that the passage of an ice boat made as much noise as the flight of a fast train.

She could scarcely distinguish what Nelson Haley shouted at her, and he was so near, too. He pointed ahead. She stooped to look under the boom and saw a great windrow of snow—a huge drift more than six feet high—not half a mile away.

This drift stretched, it seemed, from side to side of the lake. They could not see what lay beyond it. Janice expected the others would drop the sail and bring the ice boat to a halt. Some roughness in the ice, or perhaps a narrow opening, had caught the first driven flakes of snow here the night before. The snow had gathered rapidly when once a streak of it lay across the lake. Deeper and deeper the drift had grown until tons of the white crystals had been heaped here in what looked to Janice to be an impassable barrier.

"Oh! Oh!" she shrieked. "Won't you stop?"

Nelson Haley smiled grimly and shook his head. Marty uttered a shriek of exultation as the ice boat bore down upon the drift. He was quite speed-mad.

"Hang on! hang on!" commanded Nelson Haley.

Another moment and the frightened Janice saw the bow of the boat rise—as it seemed—straight into the air. Amid the groaning of timbers and the shrieking of the wind, the Fly-by-Night shot up the steep slant of the drift and over its crest!

The cry Janice tried to utter was frozen in her throat. She saw the ice ahead and below them. Like a great bird—or a huge batfish leaping from the sea—the ice boat shot out on a long curve from the summit of the hard-packed snowdrift.

The shock of its return to the ice was terrific. Janice felt sure the boat must be racked to bits.

But the Fly-by-Night was strongly built. With the momentum secured by its leap from the drift, it skated over the ice for a mile or more, with scarcely a thimbleful of wind in its sail, yet traveling like a fast express.

Then it answered the helm again, the wind filled the sail, and they bore down upon the Landing on a direct tack.

"Gee! Ain't it great?" cried Marty, as Nelson Haley signaled him to drop the sail. "Don't that beat any traveling you ever done, Janice?"

Janice faintly admitted that it did; but neither the boy nor Nelson Haley realized what a trial the trip had been to the girl. Janice was too proud to show the fear she felt; but she could scarcely stand when the Fly-by-Night finally stopped with its nose to the shore, just beyond the steamboat dock.

Popham Landing was scarcely larger than Poketown; only there were canning factories here, and the terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad on which Janice had finished her rail journey from Greensboro the spring before. So it was a livelier place than the village in which the girl had been living for eight months.

Colonel Van Dyne, owner of one of the canning factories, had a fine home on the heights overlooking the lake. It was with the colonel's gardener and superintendent that Nelson Haley had an acquaintance, and through that acquaintanceship had obtained the cut flowers from the colonel's greenhouse.

When the three had hurried up the half-cleared landing to the railroad station, Janice fairly staggering between her two companions, the office was closed and nobody was about the railroad premises. It was a holiday, and no more trains were expected at the Landing until night.

Janice all but broke down at this added bad turn of affairs. To come all this distance only to be balked!

"It's jest blamed mean!" sputtered Marty. "Telegraph shops ain't got no right to shut up—in the daytime, too."

"It's not a Western Union wire," explained Nelson. "The railroad only takes ordinary messages as a matter of convenience. But wait! That door's open and there's a fire in the waiting-room, you see. Just because this card says the agent and operator won't be here till five o'clock doesn't mean that he's gone out of town. Besides, I'll see my friend, Jim Watrous."

This was the gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting together in the railroad station.

"He'll find some way—don't you fear, Janice," said the boy, with much more sympathy than he had ever shown before. Janice squeezed his hand and hid her own face. She could not forget how Marty had tried the evening before to hide the knowledge of her father's fate from her. This was a much different Marty than the boy she had first met at the old Day house on her arrival at Poketown.

In half an hour Nelson Haley was back with the operator and agent. The gardener at Colonel Van Dyne's knew the man personally. The story in the newspaper, and an explanation of who Janice was, did the rest.

"There isn't any better day than Christmas, I reckon," said the telegraph operator, when he shook hands with the girl and she tried to thank him in advance for the trouble he was taking on her behalf, "to do a helpful deed. And I want to help you, Miss Day, if I can. Write your messages and I will put them through as rapidly as possible. I shall have plenty of time to go home for dinner between the sending of your telegrams, and the receiving of the answers. Now, don't worry at all about it."

"Oh, dear!" half sobbed the girl. "Everybody is so good to me."

"Not a bit more than you deserve, I am sure," laughed the operator. "Now, Miss, if you are ready, I am."

Janice knew just what she wished to say. If she had not written the messages she was anxious to send, she had already formulated them in her mind. It was but a few minutes' work to write both—one to Mr. Buchanan at Juarez, and the other addressed to the man, John Makepiece, who claimed to have been a fellow-prisoner with Mr. Broxton Day.

When the messages were sent, all they could do was to wait. Janice had expected that she and Marty and Mr. Haley would have to camp in the waiting-room of the station during the long interval, and the girl was very sorry that, because of her, her friends would have to forego any holiday dinner.

While Janice was engaged, Nelson Haley had been off on an excursion of his own. He came tramping back into the station just as the operator closed his key and told Janice that there was nothing to do now but wait.

"And I'm afraid it will be an awfully tedious time for you, Marty," said the girl. "I'm sorry. Aunt 'Mira was going to have such a nice dinner for you, too!"

"Huh! I guess I won't starve," growled the boy. "Mebbe we can find some sandwiches somewhere—and a cup of coffee. By jinks! flyin' down the lake like we did, did make me sharp-set."

"If you're hungry, then, Marty," broke in Nelson Haley, "we'll all go to dinner. It's just about ready by now, I reckon."

"Aw! don't fool a feller," said Marty, ruefully.

The school-teacher laughed at him. "I'm not fooling," he said. "I was quite sure Miss Janice would be hungry enough to eat, too; so I found a kind woman who is willing to share her dinner with us. Come on! She and her daughter are all alone. The storm has kept their friends from coming to eat with them, so we're in luck."

The three had quite a delightful dinner at the Widow Maltby's. Nelson had told her and her daughter something about Janice's trouble, and the good creatures did everything they could to make it agreeable for the girl.

As for Marty, the "lay-out," as he expressed it, was all that heart could desire—a boy's heart, at least! There was turkey, with dressing, and cranberries, and the usual vegetables, with pie and cake galore, and a pocketful of nuts to top off with.

Janice was afraid that the dinner would cost Nelson a great deal of money, until she saw him fairly press upon the good widow a two-dollar bill for their entertainment!

"And I ain't right sure that I'd ought to take anything at all," the widow declared. "An' at sech a time, too! We'd never been able to eat all o' them vittles, Em and I, an' we're thankful to have somebody come along and help us. An' it sure has perked us up right smart."

Nelson had been very gay at the dinner, and had kept the widow and her daughter in good humor. But with Janice, as they walked back to the station (Marty had gone off on some matter of his own), the young man was very serious.

"I sincerely hope, Janice, that you will hear better news from your father or his friends on the border than the newspaper gave last night. The trains are snowbound, and no morning papers have reached the Landing yet, so nobody here knows more than we do about the matter. Don't set your heart too strongly upon hearing better news—that's all."

"I do not need that warning," Janice told him, with a sigh. "But I felt as though I should quite go all to pieces if I had to sit still and just wait. I had to do something. I can't tell you how thankful I am to you for your trouble in bringing me down here."

"Trouble?" cried Nelson Haley. "You know it is a pleasure, Janice," and just then they reached the railroad station and found the operator at his telegraph key again.

"I was just going to hunt you up, Miss Day," he cried, beckoning her into the office. "Do you know, young lady, that you have suddenly become a person of considerable importance?" and he laughed again.

"Me?" cried Janice, in amazement.

"You are the tea party—yes, ma'am! You are an object of public interest. Two New York papers have sent to me for five-hundred word interviews with you——"

"My goodness me!" gasped Janice. "How dreadful! What does it mean?"

"Your father's case has been taken up by the big papers all over the country. It may be made a cause for American intervention. That is the talk. The newspapers are interested, and the truth about your father is likely to be known very quickly. All the special correspondents down there on the border have been set to work——Ah! and here is something from your man at Juarez."

The telegrapher had caught the relay number of the despatch then coming over the wire, and knew that it was from Juarez. "Hello!" he chuckled, when the sounder ceased. "Your man is certainly some brief—and to the point."

He scratched off a copy of the message and put it into Janice's eager hand. The girl read it out loud: