peared nervous or was there anything in
his manner which indicated that he was apprehensive of trouble not
already well known to the public?

Marion and her mother answered some of these questions over the
telephone and half an hour later a police lieutenant called at the
house and made further inquiry. There was no longer any possibility of
dodging the most logical suspicions, namely, that Mr. Stanlock was the
victim of a decoy plotted by some criminal element working with or
under the shadow of the coal miners' strike.

And so the relief from this dread suspense was very great when he
drove up to the house and walked in, smiling as if nothing unusual had
happened. Marion fairly flew into her father's arms as if she had not
seen him for sixteen months.

"Papa!" she cried almost hysterically; "where have you been? We've
been telephoning all over the city, and the police have been searching
for you for nearly two hours. Why didn't you call us up and let us
know you were going to be late?"

"I was intending to call you, my dear," replied Mr. Stanlock, as he
greeted her and the other members of the family with a rapid
succession of hugs and kisses, indicating, in spite of his attempts to
appear composed, that he had returned home not under the most ordinary
circumstances.

"Why didn't you?" Marion insisted. "Do you know what a state of mind
you had us in during the last two or three hours?"

"I delayed calling you because I wanted to find out how late I was
going to be," Mr. Stanlock explained. "Then something happened, and I
wasn't near a telephone, and something more delayed me, and I decided
to come directly home without stopping on the way to telephone."

"What was it that happened, papa?" Marion demanded. "Was it anything
serious?"

"Pretty serious, girlie," answered her father, pinching her cheek;
"but your daddy is an awfully brave man, you know, and he can't tell
his daughter any of his blood-curdling experiences unless she can
listen to the roaring of cannons and the yelling of Indians without
flinching."

"Now, papa, you're making fun of me," Marion protested. "Didn't
anything really serious happen? The police thought you must have been
waylaid."

"I see there's no way out of it, and I shall have to tell you girls a
story that will make you all scream and dream nightmares filled with
revolvers and skulking figures and masked faces and lonely highways."

All of the thirteen members and the Guardian