The morning train of the nineteenth, which should have been the noon train of the eighteenth, deposited upon the platform Gardner of the Angelica City Herald, and a suitcase. The thin and bespectacled reporter shook hands with Banneker.

"Well, Mr. Man," he observed. "You've made a hit with that story of yours even before it's got into print."

"Did you bring me a copy of the paper?"

Gardner grinned. "You seem to think Sunday specials are set up and printed overnight. Wait a couple of weeks."

"But they're going to publish it?"

"Surest thing you know. They've wired me to know who you are and what and why."

"Why what?"

"Oh, I dunno. Why a fellow who can do that sort of thing hasn't done it before or doesn't do it some more, I suppose. If you should ever want a job in the newspaper game, that story would be pretty much enough to get it for you."

"I wouldn't mind getting a little local correspondence to do," announced Banneker modestly.

"So you intimated before. Well, I can give you some practice right now.

I'm on a blind trail that goes up in the air somewhere around here. Do you remember, we compared lists on the wreck?"

"Yes."

"Have you got any addition to your list since?"

"No," replied Banneker. "Have you?" he added.

"Not by name. But the tip is that there was a prominent New York society girl, one of the Four Hundred lot, on the train, and that she's vanished."

"All the bodies were accounted for," said the agent.

"They don't think she's dead. They think she's run away."

"Run away?" repeated Banneker with an impassive face.

"Whether the man was with her on the train or whether she was to join him on the coast isn't known. That's the worst of these society tips,"

pursued the reporter discontentedly. "They're always vague, and usually wrong. This one isn't even certain about who the girl is. But they think it's Stella Wrightington," he concluded in the manner of one who has imparted portentous tidings.

"Who's she?" said Banneker.

"Good Lord! Don't you ever read the news?" cried the disgusted journalist. "Why, she's had her picture published more times than a movie queen. She's the youngest daughter of Cyrus Wrightington, the multi-millionaire philanthropist. Now did you see anything of that kind on the train?"

"What does she look like?" asked the cautious Banneker.

"She looks like a million dollars!" declared the other with enthusiasm.

"She's a killer! She's tall and blonde and a great athlete: baby-blue eyes and general rosebud effect."

"Nothing of that sort on the train, so far as I saw," said the agent.

"Did you see any couple that looked lovey-dovey?"

"No."

"Then, there's another tip that connects her up with Carter Holmesley.

Know about him?"

"I've seen his name."

"He's been on a hell of a high-class drunk, all up and down the coast, for the last week or so. Spilled some funny talk at a dinner, that got into print. But he put up such a heavy bluff of libel, afterward, that the papers shied off. Just the same, I believe they had it right, and that there was to have been a wedding-party on. Find the girl: that's the stunt now."

"I don't think you're likely to find her around here."

"Maybe not. But there's something. Holmesley has beaten it for the Far East. Sailed yesterday. But the story is still in this country, if the lady can be rounded up.... Well, I'm going to the village to make inquiries. Want to put me up again for the night if there's no train back?"

"Sure thing! There isn't likely to be, either."

Banneker felt greatly relieved at the easy turn given to the inquiry by the distorted tip. True, Gardner might, on his return, enter upon some more embarrassing line of inquiry; in which case the agent decided to take refuge in silence. But the reporter, when he came back late in the evening disheartened and disgusted with the fallibility of long-distance tips, declared himself sick of the whole business.

"Let's talk about something else," he said, having lighted his pipe.

"What else have you written besides the wreck stuff?"

"Nothing," said Banneker.

"Come off! That thing was never a first attempt."

"Well, nothing except random things for my own amusement."

"Pass 'em over."

Banneker shook his head. "No; I've never shown them to anybody."

"Oh, all right. If you're shy about it," responded the reporter good-humoredly. "But you must have thought of writing as a profession."

"Vaguely, some day."

"You don't talk much like a country station-agent. And you don't act like one. And, judging from this room"--he looked about at the well-filled book-shelves--"you don't look like one. Quite a library.

Harvey Wheelwright! Lord! I might have known. Great stuff, isn't it?"

"Do you think so?"

"Do I think so! I think it's the damndest spew that ever got into print.

But it sells; millions. It's the piety touch does it. The worst of it is that Wheelwright is a thoroughly decent chap and not onto himself a bit.

Thinks he's a grand little booster for righteousness, sweetness and light, and all that. I had to interview him once. Oh, if I could just have written about him and his stuff as it really is!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Why, he's a popular literary hero out our way, and the biggest advertised author in the game. I'd look fine to the business office, knocking their fat graft, wouldn't I!"

"I don't believe I understand."