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THE STEEL HORSE

porch. He hadn't written before for the very good reason that he had nothing to say; and although he had plenty now, he had no time to say it, for he was going after his father and mother who were alive and well, but poor owing to ill health. He went into hiding, as Joe said he did, and found a lawyer to interest himself in his case; but although the latter went to work very quietly, Colonel Shelly and Willis and Benny had taken the alarm and cleared out. His parents had been advertised for and found, and Rowe was going to them by the first train. He would have more to tell them in .his next letter, and wanted them, one and all, to get ready to visit him the minute he sent them word. He owed them everything he had, or was going to have, and they would see that he wasn't the boy to forget such things.

And neither did Roy Sheldon forget those men on the lightship. Of course they did nothing more than their duty when they pulled Roy out of the water and took care of him, but that did not lessen the boy's gratitude nor his father's, either. Mr. Sheldon made it his busi-