e news
of poor brother Peter and find out if he is dead or alive."

"Maybe we can help you," cried Peggy, her eyes shining and her white
hands clasped excitedly.

While the rugged Westerner had been talking the story of the old hermit
came back to her.

"What do you mean?" asked the other; "do you know where my brother is?"

"I'm not certain," cried Peggy, "but the old hermit, Peter Bell, is he
almost beyond a doubt."

"My brother a hermit!" cried the wealthy mining man.

"If it is your brother," put in Roy, "I hope for your sake it is. But his
story tallies absolutely with yours. He told us that after he had missed
you in the water he thought that you were drowned. Returning home he was
shunned on every side, for the villagers accused him of having deserted
you to save his own life."

"My poor Peter," breathed the miner.

"Miserable and made morose by the contempt he met with on every side he
became a hermit and now lives in a hut near the town of Acatonick."

"How long does it take to get there? I must lose no time in finding out,"
exclaimed Jim Bell.

"You can get there in two or three hours from here if you can catch a
train," said Roy. "If you like I'll phone for you and find out."

"Say, boy, that would be mighty white of you. I tell you it hurts to
think of poor Peter living all alone like that in poverty while I've been
rich all these years. But it wasn't for lack of trying to locate him, for
I've advertised and had detectives searching every likely place."

Roy found that there would be a train to Acatonick in about half an hour,
and their new found friend hastened off, after warm farewells, to catch
it. He promised to be back within a few days and let them know of his
success, and also inform them of any further arrangements he might be
prepared to make about his offer.

"Well," said Roy, after he had gone, "the skies are beginning to clear,
sis."

Peggy sighed.

"Yes, but there is still one thing to be cleared up, Roy," she said.

"I know--the disappearance of those jewels," rejoined Roy. "Oh, if only
we had something more to go upon than mere suspicions."

"Perhaps we will have before long," said Peggy, musingly.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LIKE THIEVES IN THE NIGHT.

"Heard anything of Fanning Harding?" asked Jimsy, one bright morning, as
he stopped his car at the Prescotts' gate and he and Jess got out.

"Not a thing since that day at Acatonick," responded Roy, who with his
sister h