He might be detained in captivity⁴, but even that was far better than an accident to life or limb.

 

She knew that he would try to get word to her at the earliest opportunity, in order to relieve her fears.

 

But week after week passed, and no tidings came.

 

At length, at the end of ten weeks, a note came to her, written on a rough sheet of paper, the envelope marked by a foreign stamp.

 

It ran thus:

 

“Dear Florence:—I am sure you have worried over my disappearance. Perhaps you thought I was dead, but I was never better in my life. I am on the ship Columbia, bound for San Francisco, around Cape⁵ Horn; and just now, as one of the officers tells me, we are off the coast of Brazil.

 

“There is a ship coming north, and we are going to hail her and give her letters to carry home, so I hope these few lines will reach you all right. I suppose I am in for it, and must keep on to San Francisco. But I haven’t told you yet how I came here.

 

“It was through a trick of your cousin, Curtis Waring. I haven’t time to tell you about it; but I was drugged and brought aboard in my sleep; when I woke up I was forty miles at sea.

 

“Don’t worry about me, for I have a good friend on board, Mr. Randolph Leslie, who has been a reporter on one of the New York daily papers. He advises me to get something to do in San Francisco, and work till I have earned money enough to get home. He says I can do better there, where I am not known, and can get higher pay. He is giving me lessons every day, and he says I am learning fast.

 

“The ship is almost here, and I must stop. Take good care of yourself, and remember me to Mrs. O’Keefe, and I will write you again as soon as I get to San Francisco.

 

“Dodger.

 

“P. S.—Don’t let on to Curtis that you have heard from me, or he might try to play me some trick in San Francisco.”

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