t had been mended, and not nicely, either, but hastily sewed together
on the wrong side. It would hardly have been noticed, however, unless one
had been looking for it as Mona was, because it lay so deeply in among
the folds.

The couple entered the hotel, and both gave Mona a quick, sharp glance as
she followed; but she quietly passed them with averted eyes, and went
into a reception-room on the left of the hall.

"Go and register, Jake, and I will wait here for you," Mona heard the
woman say, and the man immediately disappeared within the clerk's office
opposite, while his companion walked slowly back and forth in the hall.

Presently the man rejoined her, remarking:

"It's all right; they had a room next yours which they could give me.
Come," and both passed directly up stairs.

Mona waited a few minutes, to be sure they were well out of the way, then
she quietly slipped across the hall to the office.

"Will you allow me to look at the register?" she asked of the gentlemanly
clerk.

"Certainly," and with a bow and smile he placed it conveniently for her.

She thanked him, and glanced eagerly at the last name written on the
page.

"J.R. Walton, Sydney, Australia," she read, in a coarse, irregular hand,
as if the person writing it had been unaccustomed to the use of the pen.

Running her eye up the page, Mona also read, as if the name had been
signed earlier in the day:

"Mrs. J.M. Walton, Brownsville, Mo."

"It would appear," mused Mona, as she left the office, "as if they are
mother and son--that he had just returned from far Australia, and she had
come here to meet him. But--I don't believe it! Walton--Walton! Where
have I heard that name before?"

She could not place it, but she was so sure that these people were in
some way connected with the Palmer robbery, she was determined to make
an effort to establish the fact, and immediately leaving the hotel again,
she sought the nearest telegraph office, and sent the following message
to Ray:

"Send immediately piece of the ladies' cloth torn from dress."

This done she retraced her steps, and went directly up to her own room.

She found that Mrs. Montague had returned from making her calls, and was
dressing for dinner.

She seemed a little disturbed about something, and finally it came out
that the trip down the Mississippi would have to be delayed for a day or
two longer than she had anticipated, as one of her friends was not quite
well enough to s