e send you?" asked Wixy, trembling. "Did Mother Smith put you
onto me?"

"She did so," said the Correspondence School detective. "And you can
pay up or go to jail. How'd you like that?"

Wixy studied the tall detective.

"Look here," he said. "S'pose I give you fifty and we call it square."
He meant fifty dollars.

"Maybe that would satisfy Mrs. Smith," said Philo Gubb, thinking of
fifty cents, "but it don't satisfy me. My time's valuable and it's got
to be paid for. Ten times fifty ain't a bit too much, and if it had
took longer to catch you I'd have asked more. If you want to give that
much, all right. And if you don't, all right too."

Wixy studied the face of Philo Gubb carefully. There was no sign of
mercy in the bird-like face of the paper-hanger detective. Indeed, his
face was severe. It was relentless in its sternness. Five dollars was
little enough to ask for two nights of first-class Correspondence
School detective work. Rather than take less he would lead the chicken
thief to jail. And Wixy, with his third, and half of the Chicken's
third, of the proceeds of the criminal job that had led to the death
of the Chicken, knowing the relentlessness of Mother Smith, that
female Fagin of Chicago, considered that he would be doing well to
purchase his freedom for five hundred dollars.

"All right, pal," he said suddenly. "You're on. It's a bet. Here you
are."

He slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out a great roll of
money. With the muzzle of Philo Gubb's pistol hovering just out of
reach before him, he counted out five crisp one hundred dollar bills.
He held them out with a sickly grin. Philo Gubb took them and looked
at them, puzzled.

"What's this for?" he asked, and Wixy suddenly blazed forth in anger.

"Now, don't come any of that!" he cried. "A bargain is a bargain.
Don't you come a-pretendin' you didn't say you'd take five hundred,
and try to get more out of me! I won't give you no more--I won't! You
can jug me, if you want to. You can't prove nothin' on me, and you
know it. Have you found the body of the Chicken? Well, you got to have
the corpus what-you-call-it, ain't you? Huh? Ain't five hundred
enough? I bet the Chicken never cost Mother Smith more than a hundred
and fifty--"

"I was only thinkin'--" began Philo Gubb.

"Don't think, then," said Wixy.

"Five hundred dollars seemed too--" Philo began again.

"It's all you'll get, if I hang for it," said Wixy firmly. "You can
give Moth