“I suppose everything is fixed up, now, and we can begin to get acquainted.”

“Why, we are acquainted,” declared Mary Louise.  “Until to-day I had never heard of you, yet it seems as if I had known you always.”

“Thank you,” laughed Irene; “that is a very pretty compliment, I well realize.  You have decided to stay, then?”

“Aunt Hannah has decided so, but Mr. Conant may object.”

“He won’t do that,” was the quick reply.  “Uncle Peter may be an autocrat in his office, but I’ve noticed that Aunt Hannah is the ruler of this household.”

Mr. Conant may have noticed that, also, for he seemed not at all surprised when his wife said she had decided to keep Mary Louise with them.  But after the girls had gone to bed that night the lawyer had a long talk with his better half, and thereafter Mary Louise’s presence was accepted as a matter of course.  But Mr. Conant said to her the next morning: 

“I have notified your grandfather, at his six different addresses, of your coming to us, so I ought to receive his instructions within the next few days.  Also, to-day I will write Miss Stearne that you are here and why you came away from the school.”

“Will you ask her to send my trunk?”

“Not now.  We will first await advices from Colonel Weatherby.”

These “advices” were received three days later in the form of a brief telegram from a Los Angeles attorney.  The message read:  “Colonel Weatherby requests you to keep M. L. in Dorfield until further instructions.  Money forwarded.  Hot.  Caution.”  It was signed “O.  L.” and when Mr. Conant showed Mary Louise the message she exclaimed: 

“Then Mr. O’Gorman was right!”

“In what way?” questioned the lawyer.

“In the note he left for me at the hotel he said I might find my grandfather by writing to Oscar Lawler at Los Angeles, California.  This telegram is from Los Angeles and it is signed ‘O.  L.’ which must mean ‘Oscar Lawler.’”

“How clever!” said Mr. Conant sarcastically.

“That proves, of course, that Gran’pa Jim and mother are in California, But how did the detective know that?” she asked wonderingly.

“He didn’t know it,” answered Peter Conant.  “On the contrary, this message proves to me that they are not there at all.”

“But the telegram says—­”

“Otherwise,” continued the lawyer, “the telegram would not have come from that far-away point on the Pacific coast.  There now remain five other places where Colonel Weatherby might be located.  The chances are, however, that he is not in any of them.”

Mary Louise was puzzled.  It was altogether too bewildering for her comprehension.

“Here are two strange words,” said she, eyeing the telegram she still held.  “What does ‘hot’ mean, Mr. Conant?”

“It means,” he replied, “that the government spies are again seeking Colonel Weatherby.  The word ‘caution’ means that we must all take care not to let any information escape us that might lead to his arrest.  Don’t talk to strangers, Mary Louise; don’t talk to anyone outside our family of your grandfather’s affairs, or even of your own affairs.  The safety of Colonel Weatherby depends, to a great extent, on our all being silent and discreet.”