ace of his father, became at once
a puzzling question. Mr. Balfour had arranged with the man who brought
him into the woods to return in a fortnight and take him out, and as he
was a man who had known the Benedicts it would not be safe to trust to
his silence.

It was finally arranged that Jim should start off at once with Harry,
and engage Mike Conlin to go through Sevenoaks with him in the night,
and deliver him at the railroad at about the hour when the regular stage
would arrive with Mr. Balfour. The people of Sevenoaks were not
travelers, and it would be a rare chance that should bring one of them
through to that point. The preparations were therefore made at once, and
the next evening poor Benedict was called upon to part with his boy. It
was a bitter struggle, but it was accomplished, and, excited by the
strange life that was opening before him, the boy entered the boat with
Jim, and waved his adieus to the group that had gathered upon the bank
to see them off.

Poor Turk, who had apparently understood all that had passed in the
conversations of the previous day, and become fully aware of the
bereavement that he was about to suffer, stood upon the shore and howled
and whined as they receded into the distance. Then he went up to Thede,
and licked his hand, as if he would say; "Don't leave me as the other
boy has done; if you do, I shall be inconsolable."

Jim effected his purpose, and returned before light the next morning,
and on the following day he took Mr. Balfour and Thede down the river,
and delivered them to the man whom he found waiting for them. The
programme was carried out in all its details, and two days afterward the
two boys were sitting side by side in the railway-car that was hurrying
them toward the great city.

CHAPTER XI.

WHICH RECORDS MR. BELCHER'S CONNECTION WITH A GREAT SPECULATION AND
BRINGS TO A CLOSE HIS RESIDENCE IN SEVENOAKS.

Whither was he going? He had a little fortune in his pockets--more money
than prudent men are in the habit of carrying with them--and a scheme in
his mind. After the purchase of Palgrave's Folly, and the inauguration
of a scale of family expenditure far surpassing all his previous
experience, Mr. Belcher began to feel poor, and to realize the necessity
of extending his enterprise. To do him justice, he felt that he had
surpassed the proprieties of domestic life in taking so important a step
as that of changing his residence without consulting Mrs. B