"And you want me to go to New Orleans?" says Carnes, as he rises slowly, and stretches himself up to his fullest height, following up his words with an immense yawn. "What for, now?"

He has listened so attentively, so silently, with such moveless, intelligent eagerness, that I forgive him the yawn, and treat myself to a long breath of restfulness and relief, at being at last unburdened of this great secret, and he crosses the room and drops into his favorite attitude beside the window that overlooks the fast darkening street.

"I hardly know just what I expect you to unearth in New Orleans," I answer, after a pause of some moments. "But I have a notion that the links we have failed to find here may be in hiding down there."

Carnes plunges his hands deep down into his pockets. I know, from the intentness of his face, and the unwinking fixedness of the eyes that stare yet see nothing beyond the panorama conjured by his own imagination, that he is studying diligently at the Groveland problem; and I sit silently, waiting his first movement, that I feel sure will be speedily followed by something in the way of an opinion.

"It's a queer muddle," he says at last, coming back to his chair and dropping into his former attitude of interested attention. "It's a queer muddle; and, it seems to me, you have got hold of the wrong end of the business."

"How the wrong end?"

"Why, you have your supposed principals and accessories, and, perhaps, the outline of a plot; but where is your motive?"

"Where, indeed! I have not even found a theory that suits me, although I have pondered over various suppositions. You are good at this sort of analysis, Carnes. Can't you help me to some sort of a theory that won't break of its own weight?"

Carnes bit his under lip and pondered.

"How far have you got?" he asked, presently.

"I will tell you how I have reasoned thus far. Experience and statistics have proved that, of all the missing people, male and female, whose dead bodies are never found, or whose deaths are never satisfactorily proven, more than three-fourths have eventually turned up alive, or it is found they have lived many years after they were numbered among the missing. In the majority of cases, say four to one, where missing persons, supposed to have been dead, are proved to be alive, it is also proved that they have 'disappeared' of their own free will. In the list of missing young girls, the police records show that two-thirds of those supposed to have been murdered or abducted, have eloped or forsaken their friends of their own free will. Let us keep in mind these statistics and begin with Nellie Ewing. Was she murdered? Was she forcibly abducted? Did she run away?"

"Umph! If she were a man I might venture an opinion," broke in Carnes.

"Let us see. She left her house at sunset, riding a brown pony, and intent, or seeming so, upon visiting her friend, Grace Ballou."

"Grace Ballou—oh!" Carnes lifts his head, then drops it again, quickly.

I note the gesture and the ejaculation, and smile as I proceed.

"She had announced her intention of spending the night with her friend Grace, but instead of so doing, she is suddenly afflicted with a headache, and, at dusk, or perhaps even later, she sets out, on her brown pony, for home, a distance of about four miles."

"Um—ah!" from Carnes.

"She is not seen after that. Neither is the brown pony. Was she murdered? If so, no trace of her body, no clue to her murderer, no motive for the deed, has been discovered. And the horse; if she was murdered, was the horse slaughtered also? And were they both buried in one grave? She was riding alone, after nightfall, over a country road. She might have been assailed by tramps or stragglers of some sort, but the first investigation proved that nothing in the form of tramp, or stranger of any sort, had been seen about Groveland, neither on that day nor for many days previous. And again, a tramp who might have killed her to secure the horse, would hardly have tarried to conceal the body so effectually that the most thorough search could not bring it to light. Nor would he have carried it with him beyond the reach of search. Was she murdered for revenge, or from motives of jealousy? Then, in all probability, the brown horse would have been found wandering somewhere at large."

"It won't do," mutters Carnes, half to himself, and with a slow wag of the head; "it won't do."

"That's what I said to myself, after reviewing the pros and cons of the 'murder theory.' Now, was Nellie Ewing abducted? She may have been, but, again, there's the missing horse. If a tramp or a horse-thief would take the horse, and leave the girl, a desperate lover would just as surely take the girl and leave the horse. Again, an avaricious lover might, with some difficulty, secure both horse and rider, but he could hardly travel far with an unwilling girl and a stolen horse, without becoming uncomfortably conspicuous. Did the young lady elope? If so, then it is my belief that she and her horse parted company very soon after she left the widow Ballou's. And here ends my theorizing. How, and why, and whither, the horse was spirited away, I can not guess."

"If the thing had occurred in Trafton," says Carnes, thoughtfully, "one might account for the horse."

"True; but as it did not occur within the limit of the Trafton operations, I naturally concluded that, if the young lady really did abscond, her lover must have had a confederate who took charge of the horse. But, at first, this seemed to me improbable."

"Why improbable?"

"Because I did not view the matter, as you do now, in the light of after discoveries and developments."

"Then you think now that Miss Ewing eloped?"

"I think she was not murdered; and the elopement theory is much more plausible, more reasonable, all things considered, than that of abduction. First of all, there are the movements of the girl herself. Supposing her quartered for the night with her friend Grace, 'Squire Ewing felt no uneasiness at her absence, even when it was prolonged into the second day. Might she not have considered all this when she planned her flight? When she was actually missed, she had two days the start of her inquiring friends."

"True."

"Then, not long after, Mamie Rutger, a friend and schoolmate of the missing Nellie, also disappears. While it is yet daylight, or at least hardly dark, she vanishes from her father's very door-step, and is seen no more. Now, let me call your attention to some facts. Farmer Rutger's house stands on a bit of rising ground; the road runs east and west. To the east of the house is a thick grove of young trees planted as a wind-break for the cattle. This belt of trees begins at the front of the house and extends northward, the house being on the north side of the highway, past the barns, cow stables, and sheep pens. So while a person in the front portion of the house, on the porch or in the door-yard, can obtain a clear view of the road to the west, those farther back, in the kitchen, the stables, or the milking sheds, are shut off from a view of the road by the wind-break on the one hand, by a high orchard hedge on the other, and by the house and thick door-yard shrubbery in front. For over an hour, on the night of her disappearance, Mamie Rutger was the only person within view of this highway. The hired girl was in the kitchen washing up the supper things. Mrs. Rutger, who, by-the-by, is Miss Mamie's step-mother, was skimming milk in the cellar, and Mr. Rutger, with the two hired men, were watering and feeding the stock and milking the cows. When the work for the night was done and the lamps were lighted, if they thought of Mamie at all it was as sitting alone on the front piazza, or perched in her chamber window up-stairs, enjoying the quiet of the evening. It was only when their early bed-time came that the girl's absence, and more than that, her unusual silence, was noted, and that a search proved her missing. Was she murdered? That theory in this case is so unreasonable that I discard it at once."

Carnes nodded his head approvingly.

"Was she abducted? Possibly; but to my mind, it is not probable. Mamie Rutger was a gypsyish lassie, pretty as a May blossom, skittish as a colt, hard to govern and prone to adventurous escapades. Her father was kind and her step-mother meant to be so, but the latter perpetually frowned down the girl's innocent hilarity, and curbed her gayety, when she could, with a stern hand. They sent her to school to tame her, and the faculty, after bearing with her, and forgiving her many mischievous pranks because of her youth, at last sent her home in disgrace, expelled. If this girl, wearied of a humdrum farmhouse existence and thirsting for a broader glimpse of the gay outer world, had planned an elopement or runaway escapade, she could have chosen no better time. While all the others are busy at their evening task, she, from the front, watches for a swift horse and a covered buggy, which comes from the west. Sure that no eyes are looking, she awaits it at the gate, springs in, with a backward glance, and when she is missed, is miles away."

"Yes, I see," comments Carnes, dryly; "it's a pity your second sight couldn't keep 'em in view till ye see where they land."

I curb my imagination. That useful quality is deficient in the cranium of my comrade; he can neither follow nor sympathize.

"Well, here is the condensed truth for you," I reply, amiably: "for this much we have ocular and oral testimony: Four young ladies attend school at Amora; all are pretty, under the age of discretion, and, with perhaps one exception, little versed in the ways of the world and its wickedness. During their sojourn at school, where they are not under constant discipline owing to the fact that they all board outside of the Seminary, and all together, they are much in the society of four young men, two of whom are students of the Seminary. This quartette of youths are more or less good looking, and all of them notably 'gay and festive,' after the manner of the stereotyped young man of the period."

"Right you are now," ejaculated Carnes.

"Just how these gentlemen divided their affections or attentions," I continue, "it is difficult to say, in regard to all. We know that Mr. Johnny La Porte was the chosen cavalier of Miss Ewing, and that Arch Brookhouse and Amy Holmes were frequently seen in each other's society. We are told that the eight young people formed frequent pleasure parties; riding, picnicking, passing social evenings together.

"They leave school; their jolly companionship is over. By-and-by, Nellie Ewing disappears; a little later, Mamie Rutger is also missing; after a little time the other two young ladies are caught in the act of escaping from home, by the means of a ladder placed at their chamber window by an unknown man, while a second, it is supposed, awaits their coming with horses and vehicle. This much for the ladies of this octette. Now, upon inquiring after the whereabouts of the gentlemen, we find that upon the night of this last named escapade, Johnny La Porte, with his buggy and horses, was absent from home from sunset until after midnight. That he returned when all the household was asleep, and securing some clean handkerchiefs and a flask of brandy, ostensibly to doctor a sick horse, he again goes, and returns after an absence of two days, accompanied by another member of the octette, Mr. Ed. Dwight."

"That's a point," assented Carnes.

"Now, we have previously learned," I resume, "that said Dwight is about to abandon his old trade and quit the country. We also remember that Mrs. Ballou shot at, and believes she hit, the man who was assisting her daughter and guest to escape from the house. Very good. During the time that Johnny La Porte is absent from his home, Mr. Louis Brookhouse is brought home to Trafton, in a covered buggy, by some unknown friend, with a crippled limb!"

"I see; that's a clincher," muttered Carnes.

"This much for three of the gay Lotharios," I continue. "Now for Arch Brookhouse. In Grace Ballou's autograph album is a couplet, very neatly printed and signed A. B. It bears date one year back, and one year ago Grace Ballou and Arch Brookhouse were both students at Amora. Not long since I received an interesting letter of warning, and I believe it was written by the same hand that indited the lines beginning 'I drink to the eyes of my schoolmate, Grace.'"

Carnes opened his lips, but I hurried on.

"I have noted one other thing, which, if you like, you may call coincidence of latitude. The eldest of the Brookhouse brothers is a resident of New Orleans. At about the time of Nellie Ewing's disappearance, Louis Brookhouse went to New Orleans, returning less than two weeks ago. Amy Holmes is vaguely described as being 'somewhere South,' and Ed. Dwight meditates a Southern journey soon."

"It looks like a league," says Carnes, scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows in perplexity. "Are they going to form a colony of some new sort? What's your notion?"

"My notion is that we had better not waste our time trying to guess out a motive. Consider the language of the telegram sent by Fred Brookhouse to his brother, and the reply to it, and then reflect upon the possible meaning of both. The New Orleans brother says:

Hurry up the others, or we are likely to have a balk.

"Arch answers:

Next week L—— will be on hand.

"Hurry up the others! What others? Why are they likely to have a 'balk?' Are the two missing girls there, in charge of Fred Brookhouse, and are they becoming restive at the non-appearance of the others? If they had succeeded in escaping, would Grace Ballou and Amy Holmes have gone to New Orleans in company with Louis Brookhouse?"

"By Saint Patrick, I begin to see!" cried Carnes.

"The telegram sent by Arch," I resume, "implies that Louis was already here, or near here. Yet he made his first appearance at his father's house two days later. Is Ed. Dwight going to New Orleans to embrace the 'heel and toe business,' under the patronage of Fred Brookhouse, who, it is said, is connected with a theater? Is Johnny La Porte in hiding at Amora? or has he already 'gone to join the circus?'"

Carnes springs suddenly to his feet.

"By the powers, old man, I see how it looks to you;" he cries, "an' ye've got the thing by the right end at last. I'll go to New Orleans; only say when. But," here his face lengthens a little, "ye must get Wyman, or some one else, here in my place. I wish we had got that horse rendezvous hunted down."

"As to that," I respond, "give yourself no uneasiness; I believe that I have found the right place, and to-night I mean to confirm my suspicion."

Carnes stares astonished.

"How did you manage it?" he asks, "and when?"

"Two days ago, and by accident. You will be surprised, Carnes. It is a barn."

"It is?"

"A lead-colored barn, finished in brown."

"What?"

"It is large, and nearly square," I hasten to say, enjoying his marked amazement. "A large stack of hay is pitched against the rear end, running the length of it. It has a cupola and a flagstaff."

Carnes simply stares.

"I will send for Wyman if I need his help. What I am studying upon now is a sufficient pretext for sending you away suddenly."

"I'll furnish that," Carnes says, with a droll roll of his eye. "To-morrow I'll get drunk—beastly drunk. You shall inquire after me about the hotel and at Porter's. By-and-by I will come into the office too drunk to be endurable. You must be there to reprimand me. I grow insolent; you discharge me. I go away somewhere and sleep off the effects of my spree. You pay me my wages in the presence of the clerk, and at midnight I board the train en route for the Sunny South. You shall hear from me——"

"By telegraph," I interrupt. "We shall have a new night operator here within the week. I arranged for that when I was in the city, and wrote the old man, yesterday, to send him on at once."

"All right; that's a good move," approved Carnes.

"And now," I said, rising hastily, and consulting my watch, "I must go. To-night, or perhaps in the 'small hours,' we will talk over matters again, and I will explain myself further. For the present, good-by; I am expected to-night at the Hill; I shall pass the evening in the society of Miss Manvers."