eyes and strutted around.

"You think my man is going on there to join the company?" asked Andy.

"Naw. The man with the kid is in Philadelf. That's the way I lay it
out."

"That's it," cried Andy. "I see! He wanted to get away on the steamer,
and Mr. Roberts was afraid there would be detectives on the watch; so he
dressed the little boy up just like Regy to make the trial first. Then,
when he found that the steamer would be watched, the man with Regy went
to Philadelphia."

"That sounds like it," said Pete, approvingly.

"Yes," continued Andy; "but I don't understand what Uncle Mike has to do
with it."

"No more do I," answered Pete. "But I tell yer what yer can do. Yer can
go on an' find out."

"Go to Philadelphia?" exclaimed Andy.

"Why not?"

"It'll take too much money."

"Huh! won't take a cent."

"Why not?"

"How fur is it?"

"I don't know. About a hundred miles, I think."

"Well, yer can walk, can't yer? Terday's the fifth, ain't it? That gives
yer till the eighth, an' a week more. It won't take us that long;"

"Us?"

"Yes. I'll go along ter take care o' yer."

Andy considered a moment.

"See here, Pete," he said, presently, "how do you come to know so much
about what the letter meant?"

"Been there," answered Pete.

"Been where?"

"In the show business. Greatest knock-about juvee-nile all-around dance
artist in the world! That's me. Too much knock-about fer me, an' I
skipped. Tra-la-la!"

And Pete made a comical show of skipping away.

It seemed to account for Pete's extreme shrewdness, and Andy had no
difficulty in believing him. He weighed the reasons for and against
going to Philadelphia after Regy on the strength of the letter.

It was only a chance that Regy would be found there; but it was a
chance, and he could not bear to throw it away. And why should he? There
was only the thought of his mother to deter him, and he was certain that
she would be easy about him if he wrote to her.

"Let's go, Pete. I'll write to mother and then we'll start."

"Have yer got a mother?" asked Pete, with a sort of eagerness.

"Yes," said Andy, "and a father, too. I'll tell you about them and what
I'm after soon as I get a chance. Come on while I buy a sheet of paper."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

[_This Story began in No. 49._]

Mind Before Muscle;

or,

TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS.

by J.W. DAVIDSON,

Author o