he evening previous to his departure he made
an unprovoked attack upon Mr. and Mrs. Badger, actually
throwing Mr. Badger downstairs and firing a pistol at Mrs.
Badger. He was a small, slight boy, but the strength he
exhibited was remarkable in thus coping successfully with a
strong man. Mr. Badger thinks the boy must have been
suddenly attacked by insanity of a violent character."

"What does this mean, Julian?" asked Robert, reading the paragraph to
his young protege.

"I don't know," answered Julian, astonished. "I spent the last night
before I came away with my friend Dick Schmidt."

In a few days Julian looked quite another boy. His color began to return
and his thin form to fill out, while his face wore a peaceful and happy
expression.

In a new and handsome suit of clothes he looked like a young gentleman
and not at all like Bill Benton, the bound boy. He was devotedly
attached to Robert, the more so because he had never before--as far as
his memory went--received so much kindness from any one as from him.

"Now," thought Robert, "I am ready to go back to Cook's Harbor and
restore Julian to his father."

CHAPTER XXXII

ONCE MORE IN COOK'S HARBOR

Various had been the conjectures in Cook's Harbor as to what had become
of Robert Coverdale.

Upon this point the hermit was the only person who could have given
authentic information, but no one thought of applying to him.

Naturally questions were put to Mrs. Trafton, but she herself had a very
vague idea of Robert's destination, and, moreover, she had been warned
not to be communicative.

Mr. Jones, the landlord, supposed he had gone to try to raise the amount
of his mortgage among distant relatives, but on this point he felt no
anxiety.

"He won't succeed," said he to his wife; "you may depend on that. I
don't believe he's got any relations that have money, and, even if he
has, they're goin' to think twice before they give a boy two hundred
dollars on the security of property they don't know anything about."

"What do you intend to do with the cottage, Mr. Jones?"

"It's worth five hundred dollars, and I can get more than the interest
of five hundred dollars in the way of rent."

"Is anybody likely to hire it?"

"John Shelton's oldest son talks of getting married. He'll be glad to
hire it of me."

"What's to become of Mrs. Trafton?"

"I don't know and I don't care," answered the landlord carelessly. "The
las