telegraphic appeal for help "in
earnest." She wasted no time--slow operator that she was on the
telegraph--in sending messages of sympathy and reassurance. She
laboriously spelled out the words: "I'll do my best," and closed the
instrument in order that she might attend to more pressing things than
telegraphic chatting.

She summoned Bob to serve as her protector, and promptly sallied forth
into the night. The great groceries, known as "boat stores," were
accustomed to be open very late at night, and often all night, for the
accommodation of the stewards of steamboats landing at the levee. At
seven or eight in the evening they were sure to be open, with business
in unabated activity. But the clerks were full of curiosity when
Barbara, escorted only by the negro serving boy, presented herself and
began rattling off orders greater in volume than any they had ever
received, even from the steward of an overcrowded passenger steamer.
She began by ordering forty sugar cured hams and four hindquarters of
beef. She followed up these purchases with orders for four kegs of
molasses, six boxes of macaroni, a barrel of rice, and so on through her
list. Still more to the astonishment of the clerks, she gave scarcely a
moment to the pricing of the several articles, and seemed to treat her
purchases as matters of ordinary detail. They began to understand,
however, when she ordered the goods sent that night by express, to that
station on the Illinois Central Railroad which lay nearest the scene of
Guilford Duncan's operations, and directed that the bill be sent to him
at the X National Bank for payment.

Barbara made short work of her buying. When it was done she hurried home
and packed a small trunk with some simple belongings of her own. At
seven o'clock the next morning, accompanied by the negro boy Robert, she
took the train and before noon found herself at the little station to
which she had ordered the freight sent. She was disappointed to find
that although she had ordered the goods sent by express, they had not
come by the train on which she had traveled.

The railroad was run by telegraphic orders in those days, and so, even
at this small station, there was an instrument and an operator. Making
use of these, Barbara inquired concerning the freight, and was assured
of its arrival by a train due at four o'clock.

She spent the intervening time in securing two wagons with four stout
horses to each, and when the freight came i