LONGSHANKS [Illustration: HE LIFTED HIM CLEAR OF THE GROUND] Longshanks _by_ STEPHEN W. MEADER ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD SHENTON HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ILLUSTRATIONS HE LIFTED HIM CLEAR OF THE GROUND _Frontispiece_ HE PULLED A PISTOL OUT OF THE BOX 58 HE COULD SEE THE BEAST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE POOL 154 HE SAW THE PRINT OF A NAKED FOOT 178 CHAPTER I Down the last long hill into Wheeling Town came the stage, its four lean horses at a canter and its brakes squealing under the heavy foot of Long Bill Mifflin. The early April sun, which had been promising Spring all day, was gone now, and a chill rose with the dusk from the river. The boy on the seat beside the driver pulled his cloak around him. “Le’s see, now,” said Long Bill, unwinding the lash of his sixteen-foot whip. “Ye say ye hain’t got no friends in the town, here, but I reckon ye got plenty o’ money. So it ’pears like a public house is the thing. Which one? Well, thar’s three or four good taverns. The one we put up at is the Gin’ral Jackson. Then thar’s the Injun Queen, an’ Burke Howard’s place, only I wouldn’t counsel ye to go thar. Good licker, good beds, an’ bad company. Most all of ’em will be full now, though, with the steamboat leavin’ tomorrow.” Tad Hopkins thanked the driver for this information and looked down from his perch with interest as the big coach lurched through the ruts of Wheeling’s main thoroughfare. Soon they came to a stop in the yard of the General Jackson Inn. Tad climbed down, pulled his portmanteau out of the great leather “boot” at the back of the coach, said good-by to his comrade of the past two days, and went into the tavern. “No beds--not even half a bed,” said the inn-keeper with a gesture of finality. Tad went down the street, jostling his way through crowds of river-men, backwoodsmen, drovers, and traders. Occasionally he passed an elegantly dressed dandy, but for the most part the people he saw were rough and uncouth. Wheeling, he now realized, was a frontier town of the great West, and he felt a tingle of excitement at the thought that he had come to the gate-way of his adventure. Finding a place to sleep in this alluring outpost seemed a difficult matter, however. The landlord at the Indian Queen was as short in his refusal of lodgings as the first man had been, and at two other taverns where he inquired Tad was met with the same answer. Then, down close to the river front, he saw a big white-painted frame building with a crude sign that bore the letters “HOTELL.” Lights blazed in the downstairs windows, and a sound of music came from within.