of no humane tendency. It was the nooning hour, and the
men at their limited leisure lay in the sun on the piles of lumber, like
lizards.

"Gee!" exclaimed one burly fellow, rising on his elbow. "How I'd like ter
git my paw on that reward--five thousand dollars for any information!"

"I'm in fur money ez sure ez ye air born! All signs favor," exclaimed old
Clenk eagerly. "I dream about money mighty nigh every night. Paid in ter
me--chink--chink--I allus takes it in gold. Goin' ter bed is the same ter
me that goin' ter the bank is ter most folks."

His interpolations into the conversation usually failed to secure even a
contemptuous rebuff; they passed as if unheard. But such is the coercive
power of gold, albeit in the abstract, that this tenuous vision of wealth
had its fascination. The brawny workman held the newspaper aside to look
curiously over at the piteous wreck, as the old ragamuffin grinned and
giggled in joyous retrospect, then began to read again the advertisement:
"Twenty-five thousand dollars in cash if the information leads to the
recovery of the child."

"Do they head them advertisements '_Suckers, Attention_'?" asked one of
the men who labored under the disadvantage of illiteracy. The scraps read
aloud from the papers were his only source of information as to their
contents. "They _oughter_ say 'Suckers, Attention,' for they don't even
tell whut the kid looks like. I wouldn't know him from Adam ef I wuz ter
pass him in the road."

"But they _do_ tell what he looks like!" exclaimed the reader. "Here it
all is: blue eyes, golden hair, fair skin, rosy cheeks----"

"Cutest leetle trick!" exclaimed old Clenk, with a reminiscent smile at
the image thus conjured up.

The words passed unnoticed save by Drann and Holvey. They exchanged one
glance of consternation, and the fancied security in which they had
dwelt, as fragile as a crystal sphere, was shattered in an instant. The
old man was broken by his illness, his recent hardships. He was verging
on his dotage. His senile folly might well cost them their lives or
liberty.

Indeed, as the description progressed, detailing the child's attire even
to his red shoes, the old fellow's fingers were toying fatuously with one
of them in his deep coat pocket among the loose tobacco that fed his
pipe. "That don't half ekal _him_," he broke out suddenly. "Never war
sech another delightsome leetle creeter."

A moment of stunned amazement supervened among the grou