Jack Winters Gridiron Chums | Page 9

were being held up by the British, or the vessels being sunk with all the mail aboard by the German subs. So he said it was a rare event nowadays for him to cancel the stamps on a foreign letter, though he had one yesterday, he remembered."
"Yesterday, Jack? Oh! what do you mean?"
"But it was to Italy the letter was going," Jack hastened to explain. "Mr. Dickerson said he took particular pains to notice it, because the stamp was put on the wrong end of the envelope. He remembered that Luigi, the bootblack at the railroad station, always insisted on doing this. He also read the address, which was to Luigi's parents in Genoa."
Big Bob's face darkened again.
"Too bad!" he muttered, disconsolately; "why couldn't that letter he chanced to notice have been my lost one? Hard luck, I must say, all around."
"Then you didn't meet with anything this morning, I take it, Bob?" continued Jack, hardly knowing what to say in order to raise the drooping spirits of his friend.
Big Bob shook his head in the negative.
"Not a thing, Jack," he went on to admit, "though I was really out, and walking up and down that path at peep of day. I couldn't tell you how many times I went over the ground without finding anything. Why, I even remembered which way the breeze was blowing yesterday, and spent most of my time on that particular side of the path. Think of that, will you, Jack; and yet for the life of me I can't positively recollect whether I did drop that letter into the slot along with the rest. I must be getting looney, that's what."
"Well, you've just got to brace up, Bob, and believe it's all right," Jack told him, slapping the other heartily on the shoulder, boy fashion. "As time goes on you'll sort of get used to it; and then some fine day your father will speak of having heard from his correspondent abroad."
"Thank you for trying to bolster up my nerve, Jack It's mighty nice of you in the bargain. I'll need your counsel more than a few times from now on, and I'm right glad I can have some one to go to when I feel so sick with the suspense, All the while I'm waiting and hoping I've got to tremble every time my father speaks to me That's the result of having a guilty conscience you know. I've read about such things before, but this is the first time I've actually had the experience myself."
"Besides," continued Jack, "even if you did mail the letter, that's no assurance it would ever reach the party he wrote to. Many a vessel has gone down before arriving at its destination, a victim to the terrible policy of the Germans with their U-boats. And of course the mail sinks when the boat goes down in the war zone. If your father were wise he would duplicate that letter several times, and in that way make sure one of them had a chance to reach the party abroad."
"Do you know I thought of that myself, Jack!" exclaimed Bob, quickly; "but you see it would never do for me to mention it to him. Why, he'd suspect something lay back of it at once, and ask me the question that I shall be dreading to hear--'Did you positively mail that letter I gave you?' Jack, sometimes I can see just those words in fiery letters a foot high facing me, even when I close my eyes. It makes me think of the handwriting on the wall that appeared before the eyes of that old worthy, a victorious general, I believe it was, or an ancient king, but which spelled his doom."
"If I knew of anything else I could do to help you, Bob, I'd be happy to try. Now, I do remember reading an account of a gentleman who carried out the very policy of follow-up letters that I was speaking about. He explained how to make sure he reached his correspondent across the water he would send a duplicate letter every week for a whole month; and so far he had never failed to connect, although more than one boat carrying his letters went down. Now, perhaps I can find that same newspaper, and give it to you. If you placed it where your father would be apt to pick it up, with the article marked a little, he'd read it, and might act upon it."
"That sounds good to me, Jack. Please look hard, and see if you can run across that paper. It might be the solution of the whole thing. If father wrote again and even a third time I'd lose my guilty fears, because one of his letters would be bound to get across."
"Why,