"The silly little fool; why didn't she mind what she was doing!" he
exclaimed angrily, "and not steal other people's things!"

"Pardon me," Hood remonstrated, "but from your story the less you speak
of stealing the better. But it isn't clear yet why you sneaked the bonds.
Your father has a reputation for generosity; you're an only son and
slated to succeed him in the banking-house. Just what was your idea in
starting for Boston with the loot?"

"It was to help Ned Ranscomb, an old pal of mine," Deering blurted--"one
of the best fellows on earth, who has pulled me out of a lot of holes.
He'd taken options on Mizpah Copper for more than he could pay for and
fell on my neck to help him out. And the rotten part of it is that I
can't find him anywhere! I've telephoned and telegraphed all over
creation, but he's fallen off the earth! I tell you everything from the
start has gone wrong. I guess I didn't tell you that I already had a
couple of hundred thousand in Mizpah--all I could put up personally, and
now I've lost the two hundred thousand I stole, and Ned's got cold feet
and drowned himself, and here I'm talking about it to a man who may be a
crook for all I know!"

"This disappearance of Ranscomb has a suspicious look," remarked Hood,
ignoring the fling. "Either money or a woman, of course."

"Ranscomb," Deering retorted savagely, "is all business and never fools
with women. And you can bet that with this big copper deal on he wouldn't
waste time on any girl that ever was born."

"Human beings are as we find them," observed Hood judicially, "but you're
entirely too tragic about this whole business. If it isn't comedy, it's
nothing. I'll wager the girl who skipped with your stolen boodle has a
sense of humor. The key-note to her character is in this novel she
grabbed as she hastily packed her bag--'The Madness of May.' That's one
of the drollest books ever written. A story like that is a boon to
mankind; it kept me chuckling all night. Haven't read it? Well, the
heroine excused herself from a dinner-table that was boring her to death,
ran to her room and packed a suitcase, and that was the last her friends
saw of her for some time. Along about this season it's in the blood of
healthy human beings to pine for clean air and the open road. It's the
wanderlust that's in all of us, old and young alike. It's possible that
the young lady who ran off with your bonds felt the spring madness and
determined to hit the trail as