s and securely
buttoned. There was none of that benign appearance about him now which
had so won Dorothy's sympathetic heart and if he were lame he admirably
disguised the fact.

It was her chance! In another moment he would have left the boat and she
would miss him. She would run up to him and ask him if he remembered
about the purses--Quick, quick! He must have forgotten--

He was going. Everybody was going. She kept her eyes fixed upon him,
unmindful of the fact that somebody else was crowding her apart from
Molly and Miss Greatorex, or that, as the throng pressed outward, they
were getting further and further away.

The "shiny man" wasn't three feet ahead of her when they at last gained
the gang-plank and surged forward to the wharf. She could almost touch
his shoulder--she would in a minute--she was gaining--

No she wasn't! He had slipped aside and was hurrying away with the
agility of youth! It couldn't be the cripple and yet--there was the
point of his crutch sticking out behind! Well, she reckoned she could
run as fast as he did and she promptly set out to try!

It was a strange race in a strange place. West street in New York is a
very crowded, dirty thoroughfare. An endless, unbroken line of drays,
beer-wagons, vehicles of every sort, moves up one side and down the
other of the hurrying street cars which claim the centre roadway. The
pavement is always slippery with slime, the air always full of hoarse
shouts, cries and distracting whistles. Car bells jangle, policemen
yell their warnings to unwary foot passengers, hackmen screech their
demands for patronage, and hurrying crowds move to and fro between the
ferries and the city. A place that speedily set Dorothy's nerves
a-tingle with fear, yet never once diverted her from her purpose.

As she had once followed poor Peter Piper in a mad race over the fields,
"just for fun," so now she followed her "shiny man," to regain her lost
property. She had become convinced that he had it. He looked, at last,
exactly like a person who would rob little girls of their last five
dollars! Their own whole monthly allowance and a most liberal one.

"But he shall not keep it! He--shall--not!" cried Dorothy aloud, and
redoubling her speed, if that were possible.

He darted between wagons where the horses' noses of the hinder one
touched the tail-boards of the forward; so did she. He bobbed under
drays; so did she. He seemed bent upon nothing but escape; she upon
nothing