  Obedient to Josie’s telegram, Ursula took the first train from Dorfield for Louisville. The Conants wanted her to leave Ben in their care, but she could not bear to be parted from him and he felt that he must take care of his sister and must be with her all the time. “Josie wouldn’t have sent for me unless she felt sure it was necessary, and what is important to me is important to Ben,” she declared as she thanked her friends. “Josie will meet us, I am sure,” she said to Ben as they neared their destination. At a junction not far from Louisville, the coach from Dorfield was joined to the Cincinnati express. At the same junction the accommodation train that Josie and little Philip had boarded so hurriedly had been tied up for reasons best known to the train dispatchers and after a long, long wait, the passengers were transferred to the express. A love feast followed, Ursula smiling happily as she hugged little Philip to her bosom. It was such a wonderful denouement to the kidnaping that Josie was sorry to have to confess that she had not planned it. “I never dreamed this was the Dorfield train,” she said. “Philip and I were dumped at this junction and all I knew was that we were on our way to Louisville and would get there sometime.” She had so much to tell Ursula, and Ursula had so much to tell her, and Philip had so much to say about his wanderings, that the station at Louisville was reached all too soon. Teddy was there waiting for them, his eyes aglow with a new light as Ursula stepped from the train. At the same time, from the forward coach, two men and a woman alighted on the platform. They were Cheatham, Miss Fitchet and her All unconscious of the happy group at the far end of the platform, the three persons united by villainy and divided by distrust approached. Bill was the first to see Philip. “Yonder’s the brat, you hound!” he cried out in a rage. “So you had him on the train with you all the time! But we’ve trapped you.” Miss Fitchet was quick to see that Ursula had hold of her little brother’s hand and at the same moment Mr. Cheatham realized that standing by her were Teddy Trask, Ben and, strange Looking down the long platform, Ursula saw the sinister trio. Her instinct was to clasp her little brother to her heart and run, but a fine something that was in the girl made her stand up and, with head erect and eyes flashing, face the persons who had caused her as bitter hours as could be spent by the innocent. “That man with Mr. Cheatham and Miss Fitchet is the one who brought the note to me; I recognize the man I saw coming up the street,” she whispered to Josie. “He’s the one she calls Bill,” said Philip. “He wrote the note, ’cause I saw him doin’ it. You ain’t gonter let them take me away again, are you, Sister?” Teddy picked the boy up and put him on his shoulder. “Now you are bigger than anybody,” he said, “and you need never be afraid any more.” Josie was a generous antagonist and she could not help feeling sorry for Cheatham. He looked like a whipped hound as he approached them, cringing pitiably. He must make an effort He whispered to Miss Fitchet: “Go on! Take your brother and pretend we are not together.” “I’ll do no such thing,” she answered, showing her teeth like a snarling tiger. “The jig’s up and you are to take the blame, so watch your step.” Cheatham tried to think quickly. Should he pass Ursula without recognition? What should he do? He could not turn tail and run, as he would have liked to do. If it were not for the hateful Fitchet and her rowdy brother he might have faced the situation. How could he explain his conduct to Teddy Trask? How could his stepdaughter have found her brother and got him away from their clutches? What had that colorless Miss Friend to do with it all? Why had she gone to Cincinnati by one train and returned to Louisville by the next? What proof would they have that he had been implicated in the kidnaping? Such thoughts brought him up to where Ursula stood, with her two good friends and her brothers. Evidently she would leave it to him whether or not speech was to pass between them. Josie broke the spell by saying: “Ah, Mr. Cheatham, so we came back on the same train! If I had only known! Wasn’t it wonderful, too, that I met my dear friend Ursula Ellett on the train? Such a sweet girl! It was so fortunate that quite by chance I ran across her little brother at the Hotel Haddon. “You see, I went to the Alpha, directly across the street. When you told me you were going to the Haddon I didn’t like to go there, too, because you might have thought I was pursuing you, and far be it from me to give any man that impression, but since you had assured me the neighborhood was respectable, I just stopped at the Alpha. “I saw little Philip peeping out of the second-story window, and as I knew his sister was very uneasy about him, I gave up my date in Cincinnati and just brought him along with me. You see, Miss Ellett and I are very dear friends. In fact, we are partners in a little business in Dorfield. She runs the tea room and I do the washing and dabble a bit in detective work.” Josie continued: “This is Miss Fitchet, I take it, and her brother, known as Bill? This gentleman, I understand, was in Dorfield only last night, where he went to deliver a letter to Miss Ellett. He got off the train at Dorset instead of Dorfield and there got a lift from a country doctor who was riding in an old-fashioned car of the vintage of 1912. He left the doctor without saying ‘thank you’ and boarded a freight train going west. The letter he delivered to Miss Ellett is very incriminating.” At these words the man called Bill turned and began to run, but his course took him directly into the arms of a big policeman, who held him tightly until he could give an account of himself. “I reckon you’d better hold on to him, Captain, for a while,” said Josie. “He might be needed.” At the mention of a letter having been sent “What does this mean?” “I reckon it means there is double-crossing going on. What do you want to do about these people, Ursula?” asked Josie. “Oh, let them all go,” said the girl. “I have my baby back and that is all that makes any difference.” “Yes, that is all that makes much difference,” said Teddy Trask, “but I think you’d better not let them get away until you have a business understanding with your stepfather. If you will employ me as your attorney, I’ll attend to that.” “I do, I do!” With Ursula’s response, Teddy Trask swung into action. “All right then. Mr. Cheatham, I shall ask you to be in my office to-morrow morning at nine o’clock. You had best not attempt to get out of this or I shall have to advise Uncle Sam concerning certain tampering with mails. Letters addressed to Miss Ursula Ellett from her Uncle Ben Benson, and from an attorney in Kimberly, have been held by you and unlawfully opened.” “I—I—could not forward mail to my stepdaughter “Your confederate, Miss Fitchet, saw Miss Ellett in Dorfield in November. The police of that town have a record of her having been in Dorfield at that time, immediately after Mr. Benson wrote to Ursula. His letter is now in my possession, so you need not worry to look it up. I also hold the will of the late Mr. Benson and will expect to see the representative from the firm of Toler & Smith, who will be in Louisville shortly, so I understand. “I shall ask you in the morning to account in full for the estate of the late Philip Ellett. What belongs to the children you have defrauded shall be returned to them unless you are willing to spend some twenty years behind the bars. “As for you,” and Teddy Trask turned on Miss Fitchet, who had been rather enjoying the ragging her employer was undergoing, “you had best be very quiet and behave very well. You have been guilty of a great crime and it rests with Miss Ellett whether or not you shall be punished for it. The police in Louisville have you under surveillance, so you need not hope to escape if it is desirable to keep you.” “Yes, don’t trust silly flappers with the name of the hotel where you expect to stop,” said Josie, in her natural voice and manner, which were in startling contrast to the one which she had hitherto used in addressing Cheatham. Turning to the abashed nurse, Josie said: “As for you, Miss Fitchet, when you are running off with poor little boys and almost breaking their sisters’ hearts, don’t pass by fires where the camera man is no doubt on his job. News reels are quickly developed and on the screen. If I had not seen you on the screen, dragging poor little Philip along the sidewalk near where the big fire was on Christmas morning in Cincinnati, I might have taken much longer to trace you. I say ‘thank goodness for the movies.’ Also please let me add that the world would have more respect for all of you if you could realize that there should be honor among thieves.” Transcriber’s Note: Spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been retained as they appear in the original publication, except as follows:
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