her and made her happy when the taunts of other children drove her from the public school, he had more than a liking. She and John Marvel alone had treated him in late years as a man and a friend, and a dim hope began to dawn in his mind that possibly he might yet be able to save his girl from the shame of ever truly knowing what he had been. So, when the man, with his hat over his eyes, who had helped put the young woman in the carriage, re-entered the house and the drunken woman was driven off with her companion, Red Talman, after a moment of indecision, turned and followed the cab. He was not able to keep up with it, as, though the broken-kneed horses went at a slow gait, they soon outdistanced him, for he had to be on the watch for officers; but he knew the vehicle, and from the direction it took he suspected its destination. He turned and went back toward Gallagin's. When he reached the narrow, ill-lighted street, on which the side entrance opened, he slipped into the shadow at a corner and waited. An hour later the hack returned, a woman got out of it and, after a short altercation with the driver, ran across the pavement and entered the door. As the hack turned, Red Talman slipped out of the shadow and walked up to the front wheel. "Which way you goin'?" he asked the driver, who recognized him. "Home," he said. "Gimme a ride?" "Git up." He mounted beside him and drove with him to a dirty saloon in a small street at some little distance, where he treated him and let him go. A half-hour afterward he rang the bell of the family hotel which I had visited with an officer the day before, and asked to see the woman of the house. She could not be seen, the woman said who opened the door. "Well, give her this message, then. Tell her that Galley says to take good care of the girl that he just sent around here and to keep her dark." "Which one?" demanded the woman. "The one as was doped, that come in the hack." "All right." "That's all," said Talman, and walked off. The self-constituted detective pondered as he passed down through the dark street. How should he use his information? Hate, gratitude, and the need for money all contended in his breast. He had long harbored a feeling of revenge against McSheen and Raffity and his understrapper, Gallagin. They had deserted him in his hour of need and he had come near being hanged for doing their work. Only his fear of McSheen's power had kept him quiet. The desire for revenge and the feeling of gratitude worked together. But how should he use his knowledge? It behooved him to be prudent. Coll McSheen and Mick Raffity and Mel Gallagin were powerful forces in the world in which he moved. They could land him behind the bars in an hour if they worked together. At last he solved it!