The guardian of law and order continued to look the part of an indignant butt of banter. “A blazed trail in Central Park, New York?” he scoffed. “You’ll show me or you’ll come along to the station!” “Why not a blazed trail—why not anything in Central Park?” Peter Pape put the question with that grin, half ironic and wholly serious, with which he had faced other such posers in his past. To him, the West come East, this park was the heart of the town—Gotham’s great, green heart. By its moods it controlled the pulse of rich and poor alike; showed to all, sans price or prejudice, that beauty which is the love of nature made visible; inspired the most uncouth and unlearned with the responses of the cultured and the erudite. The human heart was capable of any emotion, from small to great. Any deed, then, might be done within the people’s park. CHAPTER II—A TIP FROM THE TOP Peter Pape swung from the saddle and, pulling the reins over Polkadot’s head, led the law’s “strong arm” down the heights over the way he had ascended on horseback. A glance into the hectic visage beside him offered the assurance that, while not yet under arrest, he soon would be if he failed to find those circle-marked trees. “The town that owns this park, now, should be the last to blame us for mistaking our locale,” he took occasion to argue amongst their downward stumbles. “It’s like a regular frontier wilderness—almost. There’s nothing much around to break the solitude except people—only about six or seven million of them per day. And there’s nothing to break the silence except——Listen to that never-ending drone! Don’t it sound for all the world like the wind playing through pines?” “Sounds more like motors to me—Fords _and_ automobiles a-playing over macadam,” grumbled the guard. But Why-Not Pape was not easily to be diverted from his dream. “And yon green dome to the north of the range—” he lifted eyes and a hand—“just couldn’t look more like the copper stain on a butte within binocular range of my Hellroaring ranch house.” “Lay off of that irreverence. You can’t cuss at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine—not in my presence, you can’t!” The topmost of the trail-blazing trees Pape offered as Exhibit “A” for the defense. The line of them, when sighted from below, looked to be leading, he declared. An off-duty grin humanized the official countenance. “White paint spots tell the tree gang to saw down dying trunks and haul the logs to the saw-mill over in North Meadow. If you was to follow all of them as bridle signs you’d get yourself and that gingham nag of yourn sentenced for life. This once I’m going to try to believe you’re as green as you look. C’mon down to the path.”