She knew where he was now, it is true—but only relatively. The first report of his antics had come from a little town in the California foothills; the second from a summer resort in a Valley of the Californian Sierra. He was being reported pretty well all over the United States now, but the first news in all probability were the only valuable clew. They were desolately vague though. A man who flies covers much ground. Where did he sleep? Where was his lair—or his nest, rather? It was sleeping, not flying, that he was to be caught. How could she locate him? It would take time, to do this, and money. And the check-book—oh, Lordie, that check-book!
Little Dolly, always at the bottom a pretty level-headed creature, had become wonderfully patient in the past month. Patient with a determination fixed as a star, as a law of Nature; a determination which was stronger far than herself; which was outside herself; which she could feel, almost, a huge pressure behind her, as of great reservoirs filled through trickling æons; and which astonished her. She had written of it, once, to her aunt.
"Dear Dolly," had answered this Darwinian lady; "you are right. It is not of you. It is of all women that have gone before you, of the millions and millions of women who have fought, and plotted, and intrigued in order to keep alive the spark of Life and hand it down to you. It is, Dolly, the Persistence of Woman; the inexorable persistence of Woman, Dolly, holding Man. Holding Man, Dolly, in spite of his superior physical strength, of his superior brutality; holding him through the ages. The terrific persistence of Woman holding Man, Dolly, Man—the restless, the moody, the incomprehensible; the erratic one, ever dissatisfied, ever bounding to the end of his chain in blind surges toward painted things of the air which we know do not exist.
"Oh, no; you cannot help it, dear little Dolly. Cling, Dolly, cling!"
"That's horrid," Dolly had said, when she had finished this epistle.
And then, after a while, but this time with a smile; "how perfectly horrid!"
But now, this patience, this persistence, was indeed a precious thing. It enabled her to wait calmly for the turn of chance which would enable her to find Charles-Norton. She read the papers every day. Truth to tell, they promised little help, for by this time they were announcing Charles-Norton simultaneously in New Orleans, Quebec, Key West, and Victoria. Wisely, Dolly had preserved the first clippings. And after all, it was from the papers that was to come the solution. The paper, one morning, after describing appearances of Charles-Norton in Vladivostock, Paris, and Timbuctoo, had slid from her knees to the floor, when her eyes lit upon an advertisement on the up-turned back-page.
BISON BILLIAM
AND
HIS WORLD-RENOWNED WILD-WEST SHOW
PERMANENTLY
NOW
AT THE HIPPODROME
NIGHTLY
* * *
HENRIQUE FARMANO, IN HIS AEROPLANE,
WILL FLY FIFTY FEET!!
"Ooh!" said Dolly, suddenly clapping both her hands to her heart; "ooh, I've got it!"