s.

Janice gathered up her few small purchases and stole out of the old
store.

It was more than a week later when Marty came home to supper one night
and grinned broadly at his cousin.

"What d'ye s'pose I've got for you, Janice?" he asked.

His cousin flashed him a single comprehending look, and then her face
went white.

"Daddy!" she gasped. "A letter from Daddy?"

"Aw, shucks! ain't there nothin' else you want?" the boy returned,
teasingly.

"Not so much as a talk with Daddy," she declared, breathlessly. "And
that's almost what a letter will be. Dear Marty! If you've got a
letter from him do, do let me have it!"

"Don't you torment Janice now, Marty," cried his mother. "I hope he is
all right, Janice. Is it writ in his own hand, Marty?"

"I dunno," said the plaguesome boy, looking at the address covertly.
"It is postmarked 'Juarez'."

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried Janice. "He would send it down there to be
mailed. So he said. Mail service up in Chihuahua is so uncertain.
Oh, Marty! p-l-e-a-s-e!"

"You give her that, Marty!" commanded Mr. Day.

Janice snatched the letter when the boy held it out to her; but she
flashed Marty a "Thanks, awfully!" as she ran out of the room and
upstairs. Supper? What did she care for supper? In the red light of
the sunset she sat by the window in her room and read Mr. Broxton Day's
loving letter.

It _was_ almost like seeing and talking with Daddy! Those firm,
flowing lines of black ink, displaying character and firmness and
decision, looked just like Daddy himself! Janice kissed the open page
ecstatically, and then began to read:

"DEAR DAUGHTER:

"The several thousand miles that separate us seem very short indeed
when I sit down to write my little Janice. I can see her standing
right before me in this barren, corrugated-iron shack--which would have
been burned the last time a bunch of the Constitutionalists swept
through these hills, only iron will not burn. If a party of Federal
troops come along they may try to destroy our plant, too. Just at the
present time the foreigner, and his property, are in no great favor
with either party of belligerents. The cry is 'Mexico for the
Mexicans'--and one can scarcely blame them. But although I have seen a
little fighting at a distance, and plenty of the marks of battle along
the railroad line as I came up here, I do not think I am as yet in any
great danger.

"Therefore, my dear, do not worry too much ab