"Ben Barry, you're entirely too smart for the law!" she said. "You'll never stoop to try a case. You'll know everything beforehand. You're a kind of a mixture of a clairvoyant and a Sherlock Holmes, you are. If you'd seen as I did that beautiful, touchin' young face turn to stone when that raw-boned, cross-eyed thing looked at her so--so hungry-like, and took possession of her as though he was only goin' to wait till they got home to eat her up--and I let 'em go!" Miss Upton reverted to her chief woe. "I let 'em go without findin' out _where_, when in all the world that poor child had nobody but me, a country jake she met in a restaurant, to care whether that Carder picked her bones after he got her to his cave." "That what?" "Carder, Rufus Carder. The one thing I have got is his hateful name. He lives 'way off on a farm somewheres, but knowin' his name, a detective ought to--" Ben Barry leaned forward in his chair and his eyes ceased to twinkle. "Rufus Carder? If it is the one I'm thinking of, he's one of the biggest reprobates in the country." "That's him," returned Miss Upton with conviction. "At first I sized him up as just awkward and countrified; but the way he looked at the child and the way he spoke to her showed he wa'n't any weaklin'." "I should say not. He's as clever as they make 'em and he has piles of money--other people's money. He can get out of the smallest loophole known to the law. He always manages to save his own skin while he takes the other fellow's. Rufus Carder." Ben frowned. "I wonder if it can be." Miss Upton received his alert gaze and looked down on him in triumph. "You're wakin' up, are you?" she said. "I guess I don't meet you in town next Saturday, do I? Oh, Ben"--casting her victory behind her--"do you mean to say you know where he lives?" "I know some of the places." "That farm"--eagerly--"do you know that?" "Yes. Pretty nearly. I can find it." "And you mean you will find it? You dear boy! And you'll take me with you, and we'll bring her back with us. I can make room for her at my house." "Hold on, Mehitable. We're dealing with one of the biggest rascals on the top side of earth. If he wants to keep the girl it may not be simple to get her. At any rate, it's best for me to go alone first. You write a note to her and I'll take it and bring back news to you of the lay of the land." Miss Upton gazed in speechless hope and gratitude at the young man as he rose and paced up and down the piazza in thought. "Oh, Ben," she ejaculated, clasping her hands, "to think that I'm in time to get you to do this before you kill yourself in that aeroplane!" "Nothing of the sort, my dear Mehit" he returned. "Remember that, unlike the zebra, they are tamable in captivity, you'll be soaring with me yet." Miss Upton laughed in her relief. "If all they want is something heavier than air, I'm _it_," she returned. CHAPTER V The New Help