The prisoner blinked stupidly at the lantern and made no effort to rise. His aspect was not in the least ferocious. O’Shea could scarcely believe that this was the madman who had threatened to sink his teeth in him and discommode his windpipe. Rough-featured he was and unkempt beyond words, but he conveyed a most incongruous impression of kindly and harmless simplicity, and O’Shea was the more amazed to hear him mutter in his hoarse, curiously thickened accents: “Can you spare a chew of tobacco, shipmate?” “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” exclaimed Johnny Kent, absently feeling for his trousers’ pockets which were not there. “You certainly did tame him a whole lot, Cap’n Mike.” “’Tis a riddle I cannot fathom at all,” was the reply. Indignation got the upper hand of the engineer’s generous impulse and he explosively demanded of the stranger: “What do you mean by tryin’ to set fire to my barn, you addle-headed, misbegotten, murderous son of a sculpin? I wish Cap’n Mike had knocked the block clean off you.” The queer visitor showed no resentment, but smiled in an amiable sort of fashion and rubbed a large, red welt just above his right ear. Never a word did he say, although the twain plied him with questions. His demeanor was as friendly as if they had done him some signal service. “If you can’t talk, maybe ye can walk,” gustily shouted O’Shea. “We will clap ye under hatches for to-night and investigate by daylight. We have caught an odd fish this time, Johnny.” “Prod him into the wood-shed and lock him up,” grumbled the other. “He’s plumb twistified in his mental works, and I can’t make head or tail of him.” At a beckoning gesture the prisoner meekly tried to get on his feet, but he had been shorn of his strength and he fell twice before O’Shea and Johnny Kent grasped him by the arms and steered him in the path that led to the cottage. He stumbled along like a drunken man and had to be half-dragged over the low step at the wood-shed door. Calling himself a soft-hearted old fool, the engineer bustled into the house and dragged forth a spare mattress. O’Shea obtained a lamp in the kitchen, also cold water and a towel to bathe the hurt that his hickory weapon had inflicted. The red-haired man sat forlornly upon the mattress, leaning against the coal-bin, his hands clasped over his knees. He had the dumb, wistful look of a beaten dog, and his eyes, remarkably blue of color, followed Captain O’Shea with no ill-will, but like one who recognized his master. It was clear enough that he was to be dealt with as a man with a disordered mind, and it was unmanly to hold him accountable for his arson and violence. Attacked unawares in the darkness, there had been provocation for his bestial outbreak, and it was to be concluded that his usual mood was harmless, excepting a fatal fondness for playing with fire.