nd sings half the night to
himself--old church hymns that were never heard in this place. And the
thing that I notice is this: he prays like one who was brought up to
it; not like some reprobate who has been scared into piety. I've heard
them a few times, too, and I know the difference.

"Now, that means a little, and when you put it with the company he
keeps, especially Crouch, his chum, that black-looking fellow who was
shooting at the target out there this morning, don't you see it grows
quite interesting?"

"I should think it does. Why, it is perfectly certain that he is a
desperate sort of person. I wonder what he has done? It couldn't be
the Cleveland fur robbery, I suppose," I said.

Howard got up and shook himself and then laughed uproariously.

"No, but he might be the Rahway murderer. You'd better lock the door
fast and tight at night." (This was a stab at my well-known
cowardice.)

"And, little mother, if you think you have got hold of a delightful,
bloody mystery, for the love of heaven keep still about it. A little
talk will set a cyclone going if you're not particular."

I resented this caution as quite unnecessary, but Howard laughed and
shook his finger at me. I think he is at the age when a young man
feels his physical and political superiority over his mother very
fully. After he had gone out I sat thinking over his new idea. I had a
faint suspicion that Howard was amusing himself at my interest in the
matter, and was starting me in pursuit of something that he knew
perfectly well beforehand; yet every word that he had said was
fastened in my memory, and many little unnoticed things now came up to
strengthen my suspicions.

In Crouch, the evil-looking fellow, I had no interest, for he was not
mysterious. He was a rascal at the first glance, and could not be
anything else. And he was the sort of rascal that one is content not
to investigate, but observe at the greatest possible distance.

What, then, was young Reynolds' interest in him? I intended to write
home the next day to ask about the Mansfield brothers, but Howard
carried me off to the mines to camp for a few days, and my thoughts
were turned in a new direction.

The day after my return I went out for a walk through the town. I
crossed the plaza and started down one of the diverging streets, when
I suddenly found myself in a most unsavory neighborhood, and suspected
that I must have crossed the "dead line," beyond which I had been told