CHAPTER XVI.
TIGER WALDRON "COMES BACK." Old Isaac Flint loved but two things in all this world--power, and his daughter Catherine.
I speak advisedly in putting "power" first.

Much as he idolized the girl, much as she reminded him of the long-dead wife of his youth, he could have survived the loss of her.

The loss of power would inevitably have crushed and broken him, stunned him, killed him.

Yet, so far as human affection could still blossom in that withered heart, shrunk by cold scheming and the cruel piracies of many decades, he loved the girl.
And so it was that when the message came in, that evening, over the telephone, the news that Kate had been injured in an auto-accident which had entirely destroyed the machine and killed Herrick, he paled, trembled, and clutched the receiver, hardly able to hold it to his ear with his shaking hand.
"Here! You!" he cried.

"She--she's not badly hurt?
She's living?
She's safe?
No lies, now! The truth!" "Your daughter is very much alive, and perfectly safe," a voice answered.