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"What!" exclaimed the butcher's boy, very much surprised.

"Me!" chuckles the monstrous little man. "And I 'm very lonesome," he adds, with a sigh; "and please take off the ropes."

"Oh no, not yet!" says the butcher's boy. "First tell me why, if you 're lonesome, you don't live in the village like decent folk, instead of alone in a cave, and you thieving goats and treasure and the like."

"Long years ago," began the Thring, "before all my brothers and cousins were swallowed up in the earthquake, we used to think it no harm to scare the folk in the village, and at the same time make free with their goats and treasure. But after they were all gone, there was no fun in it."

"Then why did you begin it again, all by yourself, too?" says the butcher's boy.

"But I'm telling you," says the Thring, "how lonesome I was, and I wanted to look on the people of the village, and perhaps pass the time of day, though it 's so long I've been alone that I have little talk. And every one ran away, except you, who are bold, so I made an excuse to come again. Please take off the ropes."

"That will wait," says the butcher's boy. "Now tell me, if I take you back to live

the daughter of the Borough President. Then the Thring led him first into the cave, where there was untold treasure piled high, not to mention the two bags that the Borough President had kept hid under the coal. And then he led through a stretch of the dark wood until they came to a great field in which hundreds of goats were grazing. "These will be yours for your boldness and kindness," says the Thring to the boy.

A little later, the man who was watching with the telescope to his eye on the tower of the town hall was amazed to see a host of something emerging from the dark wood. "They 're coming!" he cried. "The Thrings are coming in a body!" And he was about to ring the great bell to warn the people into their houses. But first he looked again. And what was this? Not Thrings at all, but hundreds of fat goats. hundreds of fat goats. But then there came

the Thrings behind them! Yes! There was the monstrous little man, walking arm in arm with- The man on the tower rubbed his eyes and dusted his telescope and looked again. There was no doubt about it, the monstrous little man was walking arm in arm with the butcher's boy!

This very strange-looking pair marched right up to the town hall and sat on the

bottom step, where the monstrous little man swung his legs, but the butcher's boy, who had longer legs, could touch. And they were very tired.

And every one in the village, for they had n't run away this time, stood around in a wide circle, with the Borough President in the center, and the butcher and baker on one side, and the manager of the general store and the oldest inhabitant on the other.

Then the Borough President stepped forward, and, bowing politely (for he was still afraid of the Thrings), said, "And to what are we indebted for your Worship's visit this time?"

But the Thring just rolled his eyes and nodded towards the butcher's boy, who hopped off the step and addressed the Borough President thus: "Your Honor offered the hand of your daughter and the two bags of gold here and the flat in the west wing of the palace to the one who would make the Thrings behave. I am that one. Let us begin."

Then the Borough President grew very angry, for he had no wish to have his beautiful daughter married to a mere butcher's boy. But the Borough President's daughter blushed very prettily indeed.

"What proof have I," he shouted, "that the rest of the Thrings will not be upon us, taking our goats and our treasure, and maybe the littlest child, any day at all?"

"I have the monstrous little man here, for a hostage," says the butcher's boy; "and I brought back the goats and twenty times more, and the two bags of treasure for proof." "Then that 's not proof enough for me!" shouts the Borough President.

"Oh well, then," says the butcher's boy, looking sad, but with a side wink to the monstrous little man, "let us go back and bring all the Thrings, as was spoken of."

Then there was a crying out, and a calling of the Borough President a mean man, and a close-fisted tyrant, and I don't know what all, so that he had no choice but to do as the butcher's boy demanded.

And if he was put out over it, he looked grand enough in his magnificent robes as he gave the bride away. And the butcher's boy was very handsome as he stood at the altar in an entirely new suit of clothes, bought at the general store with one of the bags of treasure, and beside him, as curious a bestman as wedding-party ever saw, stood the Thring, with his long beard tied up off the ground by a pretty blue ribbon, and the first

smile, I suppose, mortal ever saw on the face of a Thring.

AWHILE after, when the happy village was settled down again, happier than ever, and the Borough President had found out that the butcher's boy was not a bad sort at all, they became great friends. So one evening, as they sat on the stoop of the palace smoking their pipes, the butcher's boy told the Borough President the whole story of how he found the Thring and how there was only one of them and of the vast store of treasure

in the cave. "Hum," says the Borough President, "hum-m-m, maybe it 's as well for the people if they think there are more Thrings, by way of making them behave themselves. They 're well enough off as it is, always piling up more treasure and more goats than could be of use, and they always having a notion for fat little kids, themselves. Where do you say is the

treasure?"

Well, the butcher's boy could n't say just where, and as there was enough and plenty for every one as it was, I don't know I'm sure if he ever did go back for it.

And so the happy village grew more prosperous and happier year on end; and the happiest among them all was the monstrous little man they called a Thring, and no time so happy as when the old fraud was allowed to sing queer little songs and play with the pink toes of the littlest child of the Borough President's daughter and the butcher's boy. And if there was any one not quite happy in the village, it was the oldest inhabitant, on account of no one listening to his story about the Thrings any more though sometimes the Borough President would grumble because he could n't find the treasure, until his daughter would jump up and kiss him on the shiny part of his head and call him the dearest old "Your Honor" daughter ever had!

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By ADAIR ALDON

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALMENTS

IN the small town of Ely, in the Rocky Mountains, Beatrice Deems, her sister Nancy, and her Aunt Anna settle down for the summer, ostensibly for their aunt's health, although the girls begin to surmise that there may be another reason for their coming. The town is full of foreign laborers, at work on an irrigation system for the valley. Led by a Finnish agitator named Thorvik, the men begin rioting when the irrigation company ceases work on account of lack of funds. Thorvik's sister, Christina Jensen, befriends the girls and helps them to settle in a cabin on the mountain-side after they have found the town untenable. Her son Olaf, a sailor, is at home on leave from his ship, but dare not go near the village, on account of a mischievous prank he played before going away to sea. The cabin's nearest neighbors are John Herrick, the head of the irrigation company, and his adopted daughter HesA would-be reporter and amateur detective, Dabney Mills, is trying to solve the mystery of why the company is without funds when it had seemed so prosperous. Dr. Minturn, a retired doctor who lives beyond the mountain and experiments in reforestation, is called to see Aunt Anna. He tells the girls that their aunt is not only ill, but fretting over a long-standing grief of which she has never spoken. Won at last by their constant care of her, Aunt Anna finally prepares to tell them the tale about which they have been so curious, the story of her brother.

ter.

CHAPTER IX

"MY BROTHER JACK"

"I HAVE often wondered," Aunt Anna said, as she began her story that was to explain so much that the girls had not understood, "I have often wondered that you did not remember your uncle, my younger brother Jack. When you talked of things you had done when you were small children, I used to listen hungrily, hoping you might speak of him; but you never did. He was with us a great deal when you were little, and he was always in the nursery or playing with you in the garden, for he loved children. That was soon after I came to live with you, and when he was in college, studying to be an engineer. He spent all his vacations with us. I wish you had not been too young to remember."

Beatrice wrinkled her brows and vainly searched for a fleeting recollection.

"I don't remember anything clearly," she said at last. "There has been so much between."

"When my brother left college he went to work immediately, and was so eager and interested in his first 'job'! It was the building of a dam and reservoir for the watersupply of a town near us-a project that was being financed by the company of which your father is a director. It was through his means that Jack was put in charge of the work, although he was very young for such responsibility-too young, I insisted at the time. And it proved that I was right. He did his work well; he was a brilliant engineer; but he trusted too much to the honor of

other people, and he he did not take things as an older man would."

She paused, and Nancy, putting down her knitting, came to sit on the floor beside her chair.

"Poor Aunt Anna!" she said; "did something dreadful happen?"

Slowly her aunt nodded, looking steadily into the fire, as though tears might come should she allow her eyes to waver.

"Yes," she answered, "something happened that has darkened my life, every day of it, for all these years.

"We did not see so much of my brother at that time, for he was absorbed and busy. As is usual in such cases, a contractor was doing the work under his planning and supervision. Things went very well-for some months. Then, one day, like a thunderclap, came the report of gross dishonesty that a great deal more money had been advanced for the work than had actually been spent on construction; that false records of costs had been turned in; machinery ordered and not paid for; debts incurred on every side; and many thousands of dollars had completely vanished. Some one, it was evident, had been pocketing the difference, and an immediate investigation was set on foot.

"It was a terrible blow to your father. I do not know, myself, what he thought when the facts first became known; but he at once asked some of his fellow-directors to meet at his house, and said that Jack would be there to explain matters to them before the formal meeting of the whole board next day. They called me in to act as secretary, since they wanted a record kept, but desired

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the whole affair to be kept private. I can remember how my knees shook as I went in and sat down at the end of the library table. There were five men there, most of them grayheaded, all of them unspeaking, even to each other. I was in a wild hurry to have Jack come. I wanted the matter cleared quickly; I could hardly keep from crying out in the storm of impatience and suspense I felt during those endless minutes we waited.

"He came at last, and I can shut my eyes and see him still, standing before that group of grave men, so young, so white-faced and excited, so eager to explain. They asked him questions, and he answered them in the straightforward way he always had. They They looked more serious and questioned him again, while my hands shook as I wrote down the answers they were so frank and open, and they were doing him so much harm!

"Why had he not gone over the accounts more thoroughly? He had felt that his work was the engineering end of the enterprise; he had left financial matters almost entirely to the contractor, who, so he believed, was completely honest. Did he suspect the man now? It was plain from the misappropriation of the funds that the man had been robbing them. Yes, but could he offer material proof that it was the contractor, and he alone, who had been pocketing the money? No, he had no proof, so far.

"Jack was so inexperienced, so sure that every one was as honorable as he, so certain that everybody had equal faith in him. He was half-way through the interview before he realized what they suspected.

"I had thought, when he came in, how much of a boy he was still; then, all in one moment, I saw him grow to be a man. The idea that they might consider him guilty seemed to deal him a staggering blow, as though some one had actually struck him.

"You believe that I have profited by this dirty business? You think that my own hands are not clean?' he cried out suddenly, and waited a long minute for some one to

answer.

"In every group there is always at least one man of a certain type, hard, inflexible, strict with himself and merciless to others. Robert Kirby was the man of that sort in our company that day. He sat at the opposite end of the table from me, and I had watched him nervously as he turned his little sharp eyes on Jack and never moved them from his face. By some terrible mischance, it was he who found words first.

"After all you have said,' he declared in his cutting voice, 'it would be hard for any of us to believe otherwise.'

"Jack wheeled to your father and faced him, not with a question, but an accusation. "You believe it too!' he cried.

"Your father is slow of speech at best, and he was excited and upset. He voiced his faith in his brother-but he spoke a second too late.

"You all of you believe it, every one!' Jack cried. 'It is because your eyes are as blind as the dollars you are always counting.' He turned so quickly to the door that no one could stop him. I was the only one that managed to move as he flung it open.

"Not I!' With all my strength, I called it after him as I stood up in my place at the end of the table. 'Oh, Jack, not I!'

But the door was slammed so quickly that I think he did not hear.

"We all sat very still, unable to speak, ashamed even to look at one another. Robert Kirby again was the first to break the silence.

"He should be stopped, he must be put under arrest,' he said; but your father got up and stood with his back against the door.

"If it is true that my brother is guilty, and Heaven grant it is not so,' he declared, 'all the money shall be repaid at once. This matter is to go no farther.'

"We never saw Jack again. Your father had a letter from him, saying that of course he considered himself responsible for the losses to the company, since his own folly had brought them about. 'Or people may think I am guilty if they like. If you and Anna do not believe in me, I do not care what decision Robert Kirby and his friends come to,' he added. He had disposed of all the property left to him by our father and was turning over the sum realized to cover the defaulted amount. There was a little lacking, a few hundred dollars, and this he was obliged-you could see even in that businesslike letter how it hurt him to do so -to ask your father to advance. In return, he was delivering to him the title-deeds 'to that piece of land in Montana; Anna can tell you about it; there is no time to sell that in a hurry, and I want this miserable business closed.' That was the only letter we ever received from him, and that was ten years ago.

"The land he spoke of was this bit of hillside with the cabin. We had taken a gay journey, during one of Jack's vacations,

just vaguely 'West,' because he had always said there was the best opening for a man in the Western States, and he hoped to live there some day. His grandmother had given him a thousand dollars, 'just to see how he would invest it,' she said, and was a little dismayed when he came back and told her he had purchased a part of a mountain in Montana. We had been to the coast; we had seen the Grand Cañon and Yellowstone Park. It was a man we met in the park who persuaded Jack to buy this piece of land, saying that the timber on it was worth a good deal and there was always the chance of a mine. We came over to see the purchase and spent a day in Ely, though most of it was given to riding through the hills and scrambling over as many steep trails as we could find. We climbed so high that we could see valley after valley spread out below us, and the air was so clear one felt that it was possible to see half-way round the world, if only the mountains did not block the way. There were two or three riders scattered over the trail below, tiny black figures like toys, although everything was so still we could hear their voices shouting to one another and could hear the plunge and splash of a waterfall a mile away. It had been snowing on the peaks, but where we were sitting it was hot in the blazing sunshine. Jack sat staring and staring into the valley, and at last he said:

"Anna, from a height like this, you ought to be able to see what sort of a place the world really is.' I have never forgotten."

A burning pine-cone fell from the heap of coals and rolled out on the hearth. Beatrice, who had been listening so intently that she had not moved, rose now, and fell to mending the fire.

"And did you never find any trace of him?" Nancy gently brought Aunt Anna back to her story.

"Never, my dear, though we tried in every way you could imagine. He was determined to disappear out of our lives, and we were not able to prevent it. A year or two later the same contractor was arrested and proved guilty of such scandalous frauds that he was sent to the penitentiary. The first matter had been dropped on account of your father's influence and the fact that Jack had made restitution; so that the man was bolder when he tried again. Your father had made some effort to procure proof against him, but there was nothing definite enough to exonerate Jack before the world.

When the man was finally convicted, we thought that must surely restore my brother's good name. Yet I was present when your father laid the facts before Robert Kirby, who only grunted and said that nothing could convince him that they had not worked together the first time. When I say my prayers and come to the place where we must forgive our enemies, I have to struggle with myself all over again to forgive Robert Kirby, although all the time I know him to be nothing but a misled, ignorant, obstinate old man."

"I should call him something worse," declared Nancy, with heat.

There was quiet for a little as they all sat thinking.

"And did you think that you might find him here, Aunt Anna," Beatrice finally asked slowly.

"I thought we might find him or get news of him. When the doctor said this year I must go away or or not get well, I vowed that, if it were the last thing I did, I would look for him once more. He loved this place so much that I always felt, somehow, that he would come back to it. We had written to him here, but the letters came back to us with word that no such person was to be found; and your father made inquiries when he came to get us a house. He did not approve much of our settling down here for the summer, but I was determined and he had to give way."

"Yet we almost had to go back," Nancy observed.

"Yes, if it had not been for Beatrice's thinking of the cabin, and her courage in bringing us here, we should have had to give it up. And so far we have heard nothing; but I can not help hoping that we still may."

"But why, Aunt Anna, why did you never tell us before?" Beatrice put the question with the same puzzled frown she had worn when the story began.

"I wanted to, but I could not bear to. You were always so hurried and so deep in affairs of your own, as was quite natural. To tell you, and have you think even for a fleeting minute that Jack did wrong that would have been beyond endurance. is only a name to you, and after all, as Robert Kirby says, nothing has ever been proved. But you must believe in my brother; you must!"

He

She leaned back, and a slow tear of weariness and long-endured misery rolled down her cheek. The recital had tired her far

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