For the gray-haired lawyer, with his
mouth opening gravely, wide as a church
door, with a little forward pounce of his
body upon the typewritten sheets, the
sheets that meant life or death--flight
or stagnation--for the Thunder Bird,
was beginning to read again.

"Ah, but that's not all, even yet!"
he said. "This curious will has dragged
its slow length over three years--and
now we haven't finished with it, quite.
Here's a codicil still to be read--its
last word, written later, just two days
before Mr. Graham's death, so it seems."

Alack and alas! that was the moment
of the second wreck; the moment for one
jubilant girl of the dire breakdown, when
the Victory Express to Clover Land, goal
of blossoming success, crashed through
into zero waters of blankest disappointment,--almost
as bitter as those in which
she had held up her friend.

For the last word of the strung-out
will set forth that, whereas it seemed
[[46]]

p045 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p046w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p047

v?