riff broke in not unkindly.

"Well, Waite, if we are going to search for your daughter we better
be at it. Come on, all of you; Miss Maclaire will be safe enough here
alone."

He took hold of Keith's arm, questioning him briefly as they passed down
the hall. On the stairs the latter took his turn, still confused by what
he had just heard.

"Who is Miss Maclaire?" he asked.

"Phyllis Gale."

"Of course, but who is Phyllis Gale? What has she to do with General
Waite? His daughter has told me she never heard of any one by that
name."

"Well, Keith, the old man has never told me very much; he's pretty
close-mouthed, except for swearing, but I've read his papers, and picked
up a point or two. I reckon the daughter, Miss Hope, maybe never heard
a word about it, but the boy--the one that was shot--must have stumbled
onto the story and repeated it to Hawley. That's what set that fellow
going. It seems Mrs. Waite's maiden name was Pierpont, and when she was
seventeen years old she was married to the son of a rich North Carolina
planter. The fellow was a drunken, dissolute good-for-nothing. They had
a daughter born--this Phyllis--and when the child was three years old
her father, in a fit of drunken rage, ran away, and to spite his wife
took the little girl with him. All efforts to trace them failed, and the
mother finally secured a divorce and, two years later, married Willis
Waite. Waite, of course, knew these facts, but probably they were never
told to the children. When the father of Mrs. Waite's first husband
died, he left all his large property to his grandchild, providing she
could be found and identified within a certain time, failing which the
property was to be distributed among certain designated charities. Waite
was named sole administrator. Well, the old man took as much interest
in it as though it was his own girl, but made mighty little progress. He
did discover that the father had taken the child to St. Louis and left
her there with a woman named Raymond, but after the woman died the girl
completely disappeared."

"Then Miss Maclaire is Hope Waite's half-sister?"

"That's the way it looks now."

"And Hawley merely happened to stumble on to the right party?"

"Sure; it's clear enough how that came about. The boy told him about the
lost heiress his father was searching after, and showed him his sister's
picture. 'Black Bart' instantly recognized her resemblance to Christie
Maclaire, and thought he saw a