“Well,” continued Bruce, highly elated by the young girl’s interest in him and her return to her old manner, “the other day there was a fire down in a part of the city where it’s nothing but tenement houses and factories and where nobody but foreigners live. I drove the hook and ladder truck, of course,” the boy inflated his chest, proudly, as he said this, “and while I was sitting there looking at the fire I saw a well-dressed gentleman with a black beard, standing on the step of one of the tenement houses. As we were driving home slowly we passed him again, and a couple of the men on the truck saw him, too. Who do you think he was?” “I don’t know, tell me quick!” cried Laura who was listening with breathless interest and cheeks flushed with more than their natural color. “I noticed,” continued Bruce in dramatic tones, “that he had a long scar across his chin——” “Mercy!” gasped Laura. “It must have been that fearful man you told me about who used to come down to see your father. If we could only find him, the mystery would be solved.” “But I couldn’t get off the truck, and so I had to go back to the quarters without learning anything more,” said Bruce sadly, and just then Harry came whooping across the lawn, seized Bruce by both hands, waltzed him out of the summer-house and succeeded in throwing him on his back on the grass before the astonished boy fairly realized what had happened. This was Harry’s exuberant way of welcoming a friend, and a moment later he had Bruce on his feet again and was helping to rub the dust and the grass stains from his clothes. Of course Harry’s advent put an immediate stop to the conversation and half an hour later Harry proposed that they should all go out for a walk. “You’d better not unless you’ve got your lesson, Mr. Harry, I can tell you that,” said his sister in warning accents, “you know what will happen the next time you’re caught running off without doing your work first.” “Oh, bother the lessons,” cried the boy carelessly, “I can do them after I get back.” Ten minutes later as they were walking quietly along the highway Bruce suddenly fell behind the others a step, seized Laura’s arm in one hand and with the other pointed to a man who had just passed them, driving a fine pair of black horses. Laura looked at the driver and then at Bruce in a surprised way and then seemed to signal with her lips, “who is he?” In reply Bruce simply drew his finger slowly down his chin and Laura, catching his meaning at once, leaped excitedly on to a stone wall beside the road and gazed after the retreating buggy, straining her eyes to get a full, fair view of its occupant. “What’s the matter with you Laura?” demanded her brother brusquely, “you’re getting too old to be hopping up on stone walls, I can tell you.” Laura descended to the path again and walked quietly along with the two boys, not deigning to make any response to Harry’s criticism. CHAPTER XIII.