Rain had ceased to fall, but the night was intensely dark, with a raw, cold wind that penetrated to one's very bones. Shortly after nightfall three men crossed the east branch of the Ausable River and entered the little settlement of Keene. Of the three only one was mounted, and he sat swaying in the saddle, seeming to retain his position with great difficulty. The two men on foot walked on either side of the horse, helping to support the mounted man. At intervals they encouraged him with words. A few lights gleamed from the windows of Keene. Before a cottage door the trio halted, and one of...

"He's a beauty " Jack Diamond uttered the exclamation. He was admiring a horse Frank Merriwell had lately purchased. "He is," agreed Danny Griswold, with his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets and his short legs set far apart. "But think of paying a thousand dollars " "He looks like a racer," declared Bruce Browning, who showed unusual interest and animation for a fellow who was known as the laziest man at Yale.

Lizette, the French nurse, came softly and lightly down the stairs and found Frank Merriwell pacing the library floor, while Bart Hodge and Elsie Bellwood talked to him soothingly. "Madame will see you now, saire," said the nurse, with a little curtsy. "Ze doctaire he is gone now some time. Madame she is comforterbill. She say she see you-alone." Frank was all eagerness to go. He bounded up the stairs, two at a time, scarcely heeding the white-capped nurse, who hurried after him, softly calling: "Not on ze rush, saire. You make ze rush, you gif madame ze start."

"Mr. John Diamond, Lexington, Pa.: If you wish cruise in down East waters, join me Monday next at American Hotel, Boston. Have purchased yacht. Hodge and Browning will be in party. Great sport anticipated. "Merriwell." Jack Diamond was reclining in a hammock suspended in the shade of an artificial arbor when this message from Frank Merriwell was handed to him by a boy. He tore open the envelope and read it, his eyes beginning to sparkle and a flush coming to his handsome, aristocratic face.

No, it was not an earthquake that happened in the city of Los Angeles, California, on that beautiful sun-shiny morning. It was just a tow-headed, cross-eyed youth shaking things up at the corner of Sixth and Main in an attempt to find his father. And not one corner of the cross streets was involved, but all four corners. The upheaval that followed this search for a missing relative, extended in several directions, so that a very small cause led up to remarkably large results.

September was again at hand, and the cadets at Fardale Military Academy had broken camp, and returned to barracks. For all of past differences, which had been finally settled between them-for all that they had once been bitter enemies, and were by disposition and development as radically opposite as the positive and negative points of a magnetic needle, Frank Merriwell and Bartley Hodge had chosen to room together. There was to be no more "herding" in fours, and so Barney Mulloy, the Irish lad, and Hans Dunnerwust, the Dutch boy, were assigned to another room.