ON the morning after Benny Mallow’s party hardly a boy started for the brook or the woods. This was not because the dissipation of the previous night had made them over-weary, or too heavy and late a supper had induced headaches, or the party itself had to be talked over. Each of these reasons might have kept a boy or two at home, but the real cause that prevented the majority going about their usual diversions was fear of meeting the escaped counterfeiter. Where the information came from no one thought to inquire; but the report was circulated among the boys quite early in the morning that the criminal was armed with two heavy revolvers that some secret confederate had passed through the window to him, and that he would on no account allow himself to be captured alive.

This story justified the stoutest-hearted boy, even if he owned a rifle, in preferring to keep away from any and all places in which such a person might hide; but the story seemed afterward to have been only half told, for as it passed through Napoleon Nott’s lips a bowie-knife, a sword-cane, a bottle of poison, and a long piece of a prison chain were neatly added to the bad man’s armament; so no boy felt ashamed to confess to any other boy that he really was afraid to venture beyond the edge of the town.

“You can never tell where such fellows may hide,” said Sam Wardwell to several boys who had gathered at the school wood-pile, which was a general rendezvous for boys who had nothing in particular to do. “I’ve read in the police reports in the New York paper that father takes of policemen finding thieves and murderers and other bad men in the queerest kind of places. They’re very fond of hiding in stables.”

“Then I know one thing,” said Ned Johnston, promptly—“our hens may steal nests all over the hay-loft, and hatch all the late chickens they want to, to die as soon as the frost comes, but I won’t go inside of our barn again until that man is found.”

“And I’ll stay out of our stable,” said Bert Sharp, “though it is fun to go in there sometimes, when a fellow hasn’t anything else to do, and tickle the horse’s flanks to see him kick.”

“You ought to be kicked yourself for doing such a mean trick,” said Charlie Gunter. “Where else do they hide, Sam?”

“Oh, all sorts of places,” said Sam—“sometimes inside of barrels. And just think of it! there’s at least twenty empty barrels in the yard of our store, besides a great big hogshead that would hold six counterfeiters.”

“Perhaps he’s in that hogshead now, with his confederate,” suggested Charlie Gunter. “Can’t we all get on the roof of the store and look down into it?”

“I won’t go,” said Ned Johnston, very decidedly; “they might shoot up at us.”

“One fellow,” continued Sam, “was found buried just under the top of the ground; he just had his nose and mouth out so he could breathe, but he had even those covered with some grass so as to hide them.”

“How did he bury himself?” asked Canning Forbes.

“The paper didn’t say,” answered Sam. “I suppose his pals dug the hole and covered him up.”

“My!” exclaimed Benny Mallow. “I won’t dare to go out into the garden to gather tomatoes or pull corn for mother.”

“Perhaps he’s behind that very fence,” suggested Napoleon Nott. “I had a book that told about a Frenchman that laid so close against a fence that the police walked right past him without seeing him, and then he got up and killed them, and buried them, and—”

“Keep the rest for to-morrow, Notty,” suggested Canning Forbes; “but put plenty of salt on, so it won’t spoil. We’ve got as much of it as we can swallow to-day.”

“I wonder why Paul don’t come out?” said Will Palmer.

“He isn’t at home,” said Benny; “and Mr. Morton is very much worried about him, too; but I told him that he needn’t be afraid; that Paul could take care of himself even in a fight with a counterfeiter.”

“Good for you, Benny!” exclaimed Will Palmer. “If Paul only had his rifle with him, I’d back him against the worst character in the world. But say, boys, while we’re lounging about here the fellow may have been captured and brought back to jail. Let’s go up and see.”

All that could be learned, when the jail was reached, was that the sheriff had sworn in ten special deputies, and these, with the sheriff himself, were scouring the town and the adjacent country. The sheriff had wanted to make a deputy of Mr. Morton, for men who were sure they could recognize the prisoner at sight were very scarce; but the teacher had excused himself by saying he was not yet legally a citizen of Laketon. Mr. Wardwell said to two or three gentlemen that this was undoubtedly a mere trick to cover the teacher’s foolish tenderness toward the prisoner whom he had visited so often, and some of the gentlemen said that they shouldn’t wonder if Mr. Wardwell was right.

When dinner-time came, an unforeseen trouble occurred to the boys: they could not go in a crowd to dinner unless some boy felt like inviting the crowd to take dinner with him, and no boy felt justified in doing that unless he first asked his mother whether she had enough for so many; so the party divided, each boy retaining his trusty stick, and going with beating heart past every fence and wood-pile behind which he could not see.

Benny Mallow had just reached home, with his heart away up in the top of his throat, and stuck there so tight that he was sure he could not swallow a mouthful, no matter how nice the dinner might be, when he saw, crossing his street, and at least a quarter of a mile away, three people, one of whom he was sure must be Paul. He shaded his eyes, looked intently for an instant, and then became so certain that it was Paul, whom he felt himself simply dying to see, that he forgot his heart and his dinner, and even the danger that might lurk in any one of a dozen places by the way; he even dropped his stick as he sped away as fast as he could run. By the time he reached the place at which he had seen the men the party was two squares farther to the left, and Benny was panting terribly; but as he now knew that it was indeed Paul whom he had seen, he continued to run.

After gaining considerably on the trio, however, Benny suddenly stopped, for he noticed that one of the three carried a pistol. What could it mean? Could it be?—why, yes, certainly; the man was one of the deputy-sheriffs, and the man beside whom Paul was walking—holding by one arm, in fact, as if he were dragging him along—must be the prisoner.

Benny was no longer afraid. Paul, he was sure, could protect him against at least six desperate criminals if necessary, even without the help of a deputy-sheriff with a pistol. “Mister,” gasped Benny, as he overtook the officer, who walked a little in the rear of the others, “did—Paul—oh, my!—did Paul—catch the—the prisoner?”

“No, Benny, no,” exclaimed Paul, who had looked backward on hearing Benny’s voice; “I hadn’t anything to do with catching him.”

“He would have done it, though; I’ll bet a hundred to one he would,” said the deputy, “if he had met him before I did. I don’t believe that boy knows what it is to be afraid.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” said Benny, proudly.

“Benny,” said Paul, “come around here by me; don’t be afraid.”

Benny obeyed, though rather fearfully, for the prisoner, with his face rather dirty, and bleeding besides, was not an assuring object to be only a boy’s width away from.

“Benny,” said Paul, “don’t you go to telling the boys that I had any share in catching—in catching this man. You know how such stories get about if there’s the slightest excuse for them.”

“I won’t,” said Benny; “but I can tell that you helped bring him in, can’t I? because you’re doing it, you know.”

“Don’t say that either,” Paul replied. “I’m not helping at all—not to bring him in, that is. The man is very tired; he’s been in the woods all night, lying on the ground, and he’s had no breakfast; he is weak, and I’m helping him, not the sheriff. Don’t you see how the poor fellow leans against me?”

“Yes,” said Benny. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper and said, “Would you mind telling him that I’m sorry for him too, even if he did—”

“Tell him yourself,” said Paul, quickly. “And go on the other side of him and give him a lift.”

Benny obeyed the last half of Paul’s instructions, but the strangeness of his position made him entirely forget the first part, and he was wicked enough to wish that, as they reached the more thickly settled part of the town, people who saw them might think, if only for an hour or two, that he and Paul, two boys, had caught the dreadful counterfeiter. And his wish was gratified even more than he had dared to hope, for suddenly they came face to face with Ned Johnston, who gave them just one wondering look, and then flew about town and told every boy that the prisoner had been caught, and that Paul and Benny did it.

Arrived at the jail, the deputy pointed with his pistol to the still open door.

“One moment, please,” said the prisoner. “Boys, I am very much obliged to you. Will you shake hands?”

He put out his hand toward Benny as he spoke, and Benny took it; then he gave a hand to Paul, and Paul looked him straight in the face so long that Benny was sure he was going to make certain of the man’s looks in case he ever broke loose again and had to be followed. Then the man went into his cell, and Paul stood by until he saw the three great bolts securely shot, after which he and Benny went together toward their homes.