nt Dorcas; I want to tell you something," and Joe laid
his hand on the little woman's arm to prevent her from rising. "You
never knew why Plums an' I left New York to come out here where there
isn't a chance to earn a living."

"I understood from something you said, Joseph, that there was a reason
for your leaving home suddenly; but I can't believe, my boy, you have
done anything wrong."

"An' I haven't, aunt Dorcas; as true as I live, I haven't, though
everybody, even Plums, thinks I've been cuttin' a terrible swath! Of
course, when that advertisement come out, I had to run away, else they'd
carried me to jail--"

"To jail?" aunt Dorcas repeated, in horror. "What advertisement do you
mean, Joseph?"

"The one that was in the paper 'bout payin' anybody who'd tell where I
was."

"But who wanted to know where you were?"

"The lawyers, of course,--the fellers that advertised."

"Why did they want to find you?" aunt Dorcas asked, in perplexity.

"That's what knocks me silly, 'cause I don't know a thing about it, any
more'n you do."

"Did you say the advertisement knocked you silly, Joseph?" and the
little woman now looked thoroughly bewildered.

"Course it did, an' it would have paralysed 'most anybody that didn't
know what they'd been about."

"Joseph, I'm afraid I don't understand you. It is a printed
advertisement you are telling me about, isn't it?"

"Of course. I saw the first one in the _Herald_, an'--"

"I thought you said some one had dealt you a blow. Tell me what there
was in the advertisement."

Joe repeated the words almost verbatim, and then told aunt Dorcas all
the details of the flight, up to the moment they arrived at her home.

Regarding the threats made by the amateur detective he remained silent,
because of the promise to Dan.

"There must be some terrible mistake about it all, Joseph. If you
haven't committed a crime, and I feel certain you couldn't have done
such a thing, then it is some other boy these lawyers are hunting for."

"There's no such good luck as that, aunt Dorcas. I don't believe there's
another feller in town named Joseph Potter, who's been sellin'
newspapers an' then went into the fruit business. You see, that's me to
a dot, an' now Plums an' Dan are in the scrape because they helped me
away. Just as likely as not Dan will come here to-morrow to ask you to
take him in, too, an' I've made up my mind that the princess an' I have
got to leave. We're goin' away about noo