in little squares, where the shot struck
him, and that is one of the strong points against you."

"Against me?" said Trove.

"Yes--that and another. It seems the robber left behind him one
end of a bar of iron. The other end of the same bar and a
sling-shot--the very one that probably felled the clerk--have been
found."

The speaker rose and walked half across the room and back, looking
down thoughtfully.

"I tell ye what, old fellow," said he, sitting down again, "it is
mighty strange. If I didn't know you well, I'd think you guilty.
Here comes a detective who says under oath that one night he saw
you come out of your lodgings, about eleven o'clock, and walk to
the middle of the bridge and throw something into the water. Next
morning bar and shot were found. As nearly as he could make out
they lay directly under the place where you halted."

Darrel sat looking thoughtfully at the speaker.

"A detective ?" said Trove, rising erect, a stern look upon him.

"Yes--Dick Roberts."

"Roberts, a detective!" said Trove, in a whisper. Then he turned
to Darrel, adding, "I shall have to find the Frenchman."

"Louis Leblanc?" the young man asked.

"Louis Leblanc," Trove answered with surprise.

"He has been found," said the other.

"Then I shall be able to prove my point. He came to his home drunk
one night and began to bully his family. I was boarding with the
Misses Tower and went over and took the shot and iron from his
hands and got him into bed. The woman begged me to bring them
away."

"He declares that he never saw the shot or the iron."

Darrel rose and drew his chair a bit nearer.

"Very well, but there's the wife," said he, quickly.

"She will swear, too, that she never saw them."

"And how about the daughter?" Trove inquired.

"Run away and nowhere to be found," was the answer of the other
young man. "I've told you bad news enough, but there's more, and
you ought to know it all. Louis Leblanc is in Quebec, and he says
that a clock tinker lent him money with which to leave the States."

"It was I, an' God bring him to repentance--the poor beggar!" said
Darrel. "He agreed to repay me within a fortnight an' was in sore
distress, but he ran away, an' I got no word o' him."

"Well, the inference is, that you, being a friend of the accused,
were trying to help him."

"I'm caught in a web," said Trove, leaning forward, his head upon
his hands, "and Leblanc's wife is the spider. How abou