To the railway station went Rhinds.  He was ruined.  The order from Washington meant that all his capital had been expended on boats that could not be sold.  There might be a chance with foreign governments, but creditors would step in and seize the Rhinds shipyards before a good trade could be made abroad.

At the station Rhinds counted the money he had about him.  At a bank in another city was a thousand dollars or so more.  Rhinds took the train and was borne away.  His wife and daughter.  The former had a small private fortune of her own; wife and daughter would not starve.  So the coward ran away.

That same forenoon Farnum and his submarine boys were summoned to police headquarters.  There they were confronted with a rather pretty though almost poorly dressed girl.

“Is this the young woman whom you rescued at a street corner, and whom you were escorting when attacked by a gang of rowdies?” asked Chief Ward.

“I don’t know,” smiled Eph.  “The young woman I was walking with had on a veil.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” laughed the police chief.  “This young woman is Katharine Pitney.  She has told me the whole story, and I am satisfied that she has told me everything honestly.  Miss Pitney is not a prisoner.  She has made a little mistake in becoming engaged to the wrong sort of fellow—­the ‘Tom’ from whom you tried to defend her.  Now, it seems that ’Tom’—­which isn’t his name, had persuaded her to help him in playing a joke, as he explained it to her.  So Miss Pitney was foolish enough to agree.  She is wholly sorry, now she knows that it was a crime, not a joke in which she helped.  And ‘Tom’ has received his walking papers so far as Miss Pitney is concerned.”

“But I beg you’ll forgive me, Mr. Somers,” spoke up the girl, anxiously.  “I honestly believed it was a joke that I was helping in.  As soon as Mr. Ward found me, I told him the whole truth about the matter.”

“You certainly did, Miss Pitney,” confirmed the chief.

“Why, I haven’t anything to forgive,” laughed Eph.  “It was a joke, the way it turned out.”

Chief Ward escorted Miss Pitney from the room, then returned to explain: 

“That’s a wholly good girl, but her fancy was too easily won by the fellow, ‘Tom.’  She knows better, now, and will have to know a whole lot more about the next man she allows to capture her affections.  Now, I have another pair to show you.  They’re in cells.  Come downstairs, please.”

Through a corridor underneath the chief led his visitors, halting, at last, before a barred door of iron.

“Look through, and see who it is,” smiled the police chief.

“Why, that’s Walter C. Hodges, who sent us off on a pleasure trip in that doctored automobile!” exclaimed Jack.

“Yes; you’re right,” sighed the prisoner.  “I’ve been cornered, and I’ve admitted it.”

“But that fellow’s daughter?” asked Jack, as the chief led them away.