The telegrams left Knoxport at nine o’clock, not before. It was with a sigh of relief that Philip received this news. He and Gerald, on whom it had a decidedly good effect, came up slowly from the station. Of course there was no chance of any word before some time in the next day. In fact, how fast the different dispatches were likely to go was a subject Touchtone would not let Gerald discuss. The storm had played havoc far and wide. Three or four connections between this little place and New York! And as many, perhaps, before at last the click of the instrument in the office at the Ossokosee would begin to be heard!
More than that, it was late in the season. Was the Ossokosee open yet? “It must be!” he exclaimed to himself. “Or, rather, Mr. Marcy must have gone back there to wind up the accounts and close the house, probably taking Mr. Saxton with him.” But the more he thought of this, and felt that confusion of mind which is apt to occur when one worries over details, the more he came to the conclusion that he had made a mistake in not adopting Mr. Banger’s suggestion as to Fillmore, the newspaper correspondent.
“I’ve a good mind to do it. What harm can come of it, especially as Mr. Banger is here to help me any minute? It’s ten to one that that rascal don’t meddle with us.”
Mr. Banger was still talking in the office.
“I believe I’ll step down to the newspaper you spoke of and find that Mr. Fillmore and let him send his account,” he said.
“This gentleman is Mr. Fillmore—just dropped in here,” returned the hotel proprietor, pushing his neighbor, a red-faced young man with hair to match his complexion.
It would not be kind to cast any doubts on Mr. Banger’s honor or on his ability to hold his tongue about even a remarkable secret; but it seemed to Philip that the editor had already numerous ideas of the story that he hastily dashed down in his note-book, and certainly Mr. Banger had been in close confab with him for an hour. Perhaps that paragraph on the escape of Philip and Gerald, and their waiting at Knoxport for word from their friends, would have appeared, without Philip’s leave, in The Tribune and The Herald and The World and The Advertiser of the following morning exactly as it did—not to speak of the longer statements which graced the next day’s Anchor’s columns. But this cannot be decided by the present chronicler. Certain it is that Mr. Fillmore seemed reasonably astonished. He hurried away with his notes to the telegraph office, where, the wires being now in order, it was promised that his news should be “rushed through;” and it really was.
The next day, from the hour that they rose until dinner, and from dinner until supper, was simply—expectation, and expectation without reward. Nothing came! They hung about the hotel, Philip abandoning even his intentions of making Gerald look about the town and its pretty suburb. The suspense gathered and increased. The fact was they were both, the older boy as well as his friend, reaching its severest limits. Touchtone had counted on some word before noon. When afternoon became a confirmed blank, his excitement increased, till he had all he could do to be reasonably tranquil—for two. What could it mean? The distance—the storm inland—some carelessness?