er little room--her room that looked out upon the
beautiful lake. She could never bring herself to read over a letter
from her father first in the presence of the rest of the family. She
sat down without removing her hat and gloves, pulled a tiny hairpin
from the wavy lock above her ear and slit the thin, rice-paper
envelope. Two enclosures were shaken out into her lap.

CHAPTER II

"TALKY" DEXTER, INDEED!

The moments of suspense were hard to bear. There was always a
fluttering at Janice's heart when she received a letter from her
father. She always dreamed of him as a mariner skirting the coasts of
Uncertainty. There was no telling, as Aunt 'Mira often said, what was
going to happen to Broxton Day next.

First of all, on this occasion, the young girl saw that the most
important enclosure was the usual fat letter addressed to her in
daddy's hand. With it was a thin, oblong card, on which, in minute and
very exact script, was written this flowery note:

"With respect I, whom you know not, venture to address you humbly, and
in view of the situation of your honorable father, the Senor B Day, beg
to make known to you that the military authorities now in power in this
district have refused him the privilege of sending or receiving mail.
Yet, fear not, sweet Senorita; while the undersigned retains the boon
of breath and the power of brain and arm, thy letters, if addressed in
my care, shall reach none but thy father's eye, and his to thee shall
be safely consigned to the government mails beyond the Rio Grande.

"Faithfully thine,

"JUAN DICAMPA."

Who the writer of this peculiar communication was, Janice had no means
of knowing. In the letter from her father which she immediately
opened, there was no mention of Juan Dicampa.

Mr. Day did say, however, that he seemed to have incurred the
particular enmity of the Zapatist chief then at the head of the
district because he was not prepared to bribe him personally and engage
his ragged and barefoot soldiery to work in the mine.

He did not say that his own situation was at all changed. Rather, he
joked about the half-breeds and the pure-blood Yaquis then in power
about the mine. Either Mr. Broxton Day had become careless because of
continued peril, or he really considered these Indians less to be
feared than the brigands who had previously overrun this part of
Chihuahua.

However, it was good to hear from daddy and to know that--up to the
time