mself to staring at the
unfortunate youth. To a student of human nature Ernest Mattray was
curious, fascinating, and repulsive. Short, slight, handsome, delicate,
nervous, unscrupulous, selfish, effeminate, dishonest, and cruel, he was
an excellent specimen of what city life could make of a boy with no
father and an irresolute mother.

The reporter, who had many a time studied faces in the Tombs, felt
almost as if at his old vocation again as he gazed into the restless
eyes and sullen features of the prisoner.

Meanwhile Happy Rest was becoming excited. There had been some little
fighting done since the settlement of the place, but as there had been
no previous attempt at highway robbery and murder made in the vicinity,
the prisoner was an object of considerable interest.

In fact, the major told so spirited a story, that most of the
inhabitants strolled up, one after another, to look at the innovator,
while that individual himself, with the modesty which seems inseparable
from true greatness, retired to the most secluded of the three
apartments into which the cave was divided, and declined all the
attentions which were thrust upon him.

The afternoon had faded almost into evening, when a decrepit figure, in
a black dress and bonnet, approached the cave, and gave Spidertracks a
new element for the thrilling report he had composed and mentally
rearranged during his few hours of duty as jailer.

"Beats the dickens," muttered the reporter to himself, "how these
Sisters of Charity always know when a tough case has been caught.
Natural enough in New York. But where did _she_ come from? Who told her?
Cross, beads, and all. Hello! Oh, Louise Mattray, you're a deep one; but
it's a pity your black robe isn't quite long enough to hide the very
tasty dress you wore this morning? Queer dodge, too--wonder what it
means? Wonder if she's caught sight of the major, and don't want to be
recognized?"

The figure approached.

"May I see the prisoner?" she asked.

"No one has a better right, Mrs. Mattray," said the guardian of the
cave, with a triumphant smile, while the poor woman started and
trembled. "Don't be frightened--no one is going to hurt you. Heard all
about it, I suppose?--know who just missed being the victim?"

"Yes," said the unhappy woman, entering the cave.

When she emerged it was growing quite dark. She passed the reporter with
head and vail down, and whispered:

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it," said the