of fight as of affection. Patting Luis'
shoulder, he cried:

"'Course I'll tell, though if she knows it all a'ready----"

"But I don't know it, Ned. She wants you to tell me. I'm one of us,
you see--just we four," interposed the sharpshooter, hastily.

"Well--well--well, 'tisn't anyhow. Only I saw--I--saw----"

Here the child paused and peered cautiously about.

Mr. Marsh promptly sat down upon the boards and motioned the lads to
come to him, and when they had done so, closed his arms around them,
with a comforting pressure, saying:

"There now! We're as snug as bugs in a rug, and nobody in the wide
world dare harm you. Hurry up and talk fast, or you and I will never
get a taste of that fine poundcake Aunt Sally wants to make."

Another moment of hesitation, and then came Ned's triumphant
statement:

"'Twasn't no ghost, anyhow."

"Of course it wasn't," answered "Forty-niner," promptly agreeing, but
considerably puzzled. He had not, as yet, heard from any of the others
about the "vision" which Mrs. Benton had seen beside the window.

"'Twasn't nobody but 'Tonio himself."

"That's exactly what I thought," he again agreed, and encouragingly
patted the boy's hand.

"And he come--and he come--and he gave us one--two boxes of that nice,
nice candy; and all we gave him was Pedro's old stick!"

Aunt Sally's egg beater fell to the floor unheeded, this time she
really put her spectacles in their proper place and stared through
them at the narrator.

Ned warmed to his task and Luis cuddled beside him, complacently
adding his affirmative "Yep," at fitting intervals.

"And so he said it wasn't nothin'. And so--and so--I fell offen the
bookcase and made a noise; and my mother didn't hear it 'cause she was
asleep. Me and Luis was asleep, wasn't we, Luis?"

"Yep. Sleep."

"And he waked us up through the window----"

"Waked froo winder, yep."

"And said: 'Go get that pointed stick, Ned Trent, and I'll give you a
dollar.' Didn't he?"

"Gimme dollar. Didn't gimme dollar. What's a dollar?" asked the echo.

Ned went on, unheeding:

"And I said no. 'Twasn't my stick; 'twas my mother's."

"Oh! Neddy, Neddy! if you'd only stuck to that!" groaned Mrs. Benton,
wiping her face with her apron.

But being now fairly launched upon his narrative, and also feeling
wholly secure within the shelter of "Forty-niner's" arms, Ned paused
no more till he had completed it:

"And then he gave us the candy, 'cause I didn't want