desire for a conversation with the fellow. The inference to be
drawn from that conversation was unmistakable. He was to be murdered
by his captors. However, the boy could let this repetition of the
charge go unchallenged.

"Remember," he said, "that you have heard only one side of the case. I
do not know where you receive the information you claim to possess, but
it goes without saying that it came from an enemy--probably from a man
implicated in the crime with which you charge me. In fact, you have
already opened up negotiations with me in the interest of the criminal."

"How so, boy?" demanded the other.

"You offered me my freedom if I would make a false confession. Why
should you want a confession unless in the interest of one connected
with the crime?"

"I told you why I wanted the confession," replied Big Bob, trying to
force a little friendliness into his voice and manner. "It would give
you a lighter sentence, and it would make it easier for me to get the
reward."

Fremont made no reply to this. The manner of the fellow was so
insincere that he could find no satisfaction in talking with him. Big
Bob, however, did not go away. Instead, he sat down on a packing box
which stood in the corner of the room and stuck the candle he carried
up on the floor, under the window ledge so the wind would not
extinguish it, in a pool of its own grease.

"If Cameron gets well," he said, "he'll be likely to forgive you if you
do the right thing now."

No reply from the prisoner, sitting not far from the window, listening
for another wolf call from the mountain.

"Cameron has always been your friend," the other went on.

"Indeed he has!" exclaimed the boy, almost involuntarily testifying to
the kindness of the man who had taken him from the streets and given
him a chance in life.

"He took you from the gutter?"

Fremont looked out into the rain, only faintly seen in the glimmer of
the flaring candle, and made no reply.

"He took you into his family?"

Fremont arose and went nearer to the opening where the sash had been,
and stood for an instant with the rain beating on his face.

"How did he come to do it?"

Fremont began to see a purpose in this strange form of questioning.
Nestor had asked questions similar to these, and had suggested that
Mother Scanlon, the woman who had cared for him in a rough way at one
time, be looked up on their return to New York. Why this suggestion?

"Where did you first s