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324 towns and villages, and the rolling fields with their leafless trees or blackened stumps, lay under drifts. It had stopped snowing, however, and she found relief in that; searchers upon the lake could see small boats now—if there were still small boats to be seen.

To the people in her Pullman, the destruction of the ferry had been only a news item competing for interest with other news on the front pages of their newspapers; but to these people in the day coach, it was an intimate and absorbing thing. They spoke by name of the crew as of persons whom they knew. A white lifeboat, one man told her, had been seen south of Beaver Island; another said there had been two boats. They had been far off from shore, but, according to the report cabled from Beaver, there had appeared to be men in them; the men—her informant's voice hushed slightly—had not been rowing. Constance shuddered. She had heard of things like that on the quick-freezing fresh water of the lakes—small boats adrift crowded with men sitting upright in them, ice-coated, frozen, lifeless!

Petoskey, with its great hotels closed and boarded up, and its curio shops closed and locked, was blocked with snow. She went from the train directly to the telegraph office. If Henry was in Petoskey, they would know at that office where he could be found; he would be keeping in touch with them. The operator in charge of the office knew her, and his manner became still more deferential when she asked after Henry.

Mr. Spearman, the man said, had been at the office early in the day; there had been no messages for him; he had left instructions that any which came were to be forwarded to him through the men who, under his direc-