le which answered the purpose of a dresser when a
single word caught his attention. It was a name: Schneider.

Billy unfolded the clipping and as his eyes took in the heading a
strange expression entered them--a hard, cold gleam such as had not
touched them since the day that he abandoned the deputy sheriff in the
woods midway between Chicago and Joliet.

This is what Billy read:

Billy Byrne, sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet penitentiary for
the murder of Schneider, the old West Side saloon keeper, hurled himself
from the train that was bearing him to Joliet yesterday, dragging with
him the deputy sheriff to whom he was handcuffed.

The deputy was found a few hours later bound and gagged, lying in the
woods along the Santa Fe, not far from Lemont. He was uninjured. He
says that Byrne got a good start, and doubtless took advantage of it to
return to Chicago, where a man of his stamp could find more numerous and
safer retreats than elsewhere.

There was much more--a detailed account of the crime for the commission
of which Billy had been sentenced, a full and complete description of
Billy, a record of his long years of transgression, and, at last, the
mention of a five-hundred-dollar reward that the authorities had offered
for information that would lead to his arrest.

When Billy had concluded the reading he refolded the paper and placed it
in a pocket of the coat hanging upon the foot of the bed. A moment
later Bridge entered the room. Billy caught himself looking often at
his companion, and always there came to his mind the termination of
the article he had found in Bridge's pocket--the mention of the
five-hundred-dollar reward.

"Five hundred dollars," thought Billy, "is a lot o' coin. I just wonder
now," and he let his eyes wander to his companion as though he might
read upon his face the purpose which lay in the man's heart. "He don't
look it; but five hundred dollars is a lot o' coin--fer a bo, and
wotinell did he have that article hid in his clothes fer? That's wot I'd
like to know. I guess it's up to me to blow."

All the recently acquired content which had been Billy's since he
had come upon the poetic Bridge and the two had made their carefree,
leisurely way along shaded country roadsides, or paused beside cool
brooklets that meandered lazily through sweet-smelling meadows, was
dissipated in the instant that he had realized the nature of the article
his companion had been carrying and hidi