Well proportioned, for so old and ill-clad a lady, did she show to be as she sprang back from him, surprised into height, straightness and lissome lines. The face within the scoop of the bonnet was pale from passion—surprise, anger, fear—or perhaps all three. She was—— “Jane!” he exclaimed. “_You_!” cried she. He stared at her, his tongue too crowded with demands to speak any one of them. He continued to stare as she fell back to her knees and, with her trowel, refilled the hole she had dug. Before he realized what she was about, she had picked up a pile of wilted plants that lay nearby; had down-doubled her tallness, straightness and lissomeness into her former old-lady lines; with a rapid, shuffling walk, had started down and around the hummock. “Just a minute, Miss Lauderdale,” he called. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Can’t we have a word or two or three?” She did not answer, did not turn—only hurried away from him the faster. He set out after her; recrossed the bridle path; entered the deepening shadows toward the heart of the park. Kicko, who had shown in his whines a spirit torn by regret to forsake either his bones or his friends, now caught up with Pape, briefly sniffed his hand, then trotted after the bent, dingy, scuttling figure merging into the gloom beyond. The dog’s appeal she heeded, but with a well-aimed stone. “Go back,” she ordered him. “Don’t you dare follow me. If you do—if anybody follows me—I’ll find a policeman and get you both arrested for annoying me.” Kicko, tail between legs, skulked back in the general direction of his treasure pile. Pape, too, heeded to some extent her warning, evidently meant more for him than the dog. But, although he slackened his pace, he did not turn or skulk. There were reasons a-plenty why he felt justified in pursuit. CHAPTER XI—DUE EAST The greatest of parks has its bright sides, many-faceted as the Kohinoor, croquet grounds for the old, benches for the parlorless tenement young, shaded arbors for the love possessed, pagodas for picknickers, May poles for the youngsters, roller-skating on the Mall, rowing on the lakes. Just as a jewel catches the light from only one direction at a time, however, this emerald of the city has also its shadows. Already Why-Not Pape had realized this of his adopted range; knew that, despite the scattering of such policemen as could be spared from pavement-beats outside and the greater number of electric lights upon whose surveillance the City Fathers appeared to place their chief dependence, serious crimes occasionally occurred in Gotham’s great, green heart. Even during his short stay he had noted in the daily news tales and tales of outlawry that would have called out posses in Montana—of women held up afoot or in taxis, of men relieved of their valuables at gun-point, of children kidnapped for ransom, of a region of caves occupied by bandits, of footloose pickpockets and mashers.