“I don’t need to,” said the officer. “Nor your daughter, nor the hands. I’ll remember all of ’em, well enough. If I see a new boy here, any time, I can ask about him.” “Of course,” said Mr. Kirby, but Millie was picking up her scattered type and the jour’ printers exchanged winks as the policeman walked out. Those very printers, that morning, had threatened to leave the shop if Mr. Kirby took in a new boy who was not a member of their Printers’ Union. “Just you listen to me, boys,” Mr. Kirby had said. “There isn’t one of you mean enough----” and he told them the whole story. He was right. Not one of them was mean enough to give up Jim. Their very hearts went out to a fellow who had been shut up unjustly and who had made so daring an escape. It was not at all, they said, as if he had really deserved to be shut up. XII THE STOLEN MONEY When Rodney Nelson parted from Jim, at Kirby’s printing office, that morning, he walked away with a strange look of energy and determination on his face. What the meaning of it was did not come out until his mother reached home, after her hard day’s work. She was very tired and for once she actually complained and said how hard it was. “Mother!” instantly burst from Rodney. “That’s it. I guess you won’t have to work so hard, any more----” “Why Rodney, what do you mean?” “I’ve been at it, all day, mother. I’ve found people,--found ’em easy,--that’ll let us have things to sell. Don’t you see? You own your store, and you’ve cash to start with, and you don’t pay rent or clerk hire. Your credit’s good and they want to see you about it.” “Rodney!” she exclaimed. “Of course we can! But what made you think of it?” “It was Jim,” said Rodney. “I thought if he could find a way out, I could.” “I won’t go out to work any more----” and Mrs. Nelson almost cried as she and her boy went over the particulars of it and she saw how easy it would be. There were days and days, after that, during which nothing exciting happened, but in each of which a great deal of work was done. Aunt Betty Bronson, in her farmhouse home, passed them in a state of half nervous expectation. There was a kind of daily disappointment, too, until one broad, bright noon when she met Uncle John, at the door, with a face that was almost blazing. “Letter from Jim!” she exclaimed. “He’s safe and they can’t catch him.” “Stop right there, Betty,” he said. “I don’t want to know where he is. I’m glad he’s doing well. Don’t say any more, now.” “I won’t, then,” she replied, but it was hard to keep her word. As for Uncle John, there was something heavy on his mind, for he sat down to his dinner with a face that looked very much as if he were about to be taken sick. “I know it kind o’ hurts him,” thought Aunt Betty, “but he ought never to have been so hard on Jim about that money. I never believed Jim took it!”