fourteen years old. He fairly seethed his way through college. Mr.
Connor has resigned from the active ministry now and lives in Mount
Mark, and Kirke bought a partnership in Mr. Ives' furniture store and
goes his troubled, riotous way as heretofore. That is, he did until
recently.

"A few weeks ago I missed my railway connections and had to lay over
for three hours in Fairfield. I checked my suit-case and started out
to look up some of my friends. As I went out one door, I glimpsed the
vanishing point of a man's coat exiting in the opposite direction. I
started to cut across the corner, but a backward glance revealed a
man's hat and one eye peering around the corner of the station. Was I
being detected? I stopped in my tracks, my literary instinct on the
alert. The hat slowly pivoted a head into view. It was Kirke Connor.
He shuffled toward me, glancing back and forth in a curious, furtive
way. His face was harrowed, his eyes blood-shot. He clutched my hand
breathlessly and clung to me as to the proverbial straw.

"'Have you seen Matters?' he asked.

"'Matters?'

"'You know Matters,--the sheriff at Mount Mark.'

"I looked at him in a way which I trust became the daughter of a
district superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"He mopped his fevered brow.

"'He has been on my trail for two days.' Then he twinkled, more like