re whenever you find the child that
Pinky Swett stole from the mission-house on Christmas day. Good-bye!"

And the woman, seeing that her companion was off of her guard, sprang
away, and was out of sight in the crowd before Edith could rally herself
and make an attempt to follow. How she got home she could hardly tell.

CHAPTER XXVII.

_FOR_ weeks the search for Andy was kept up with unremitting vigilance,
but no word of him came to the anxious searchers. A few days after the
meeting with Mrs. Bray, the police report mentioned the arrest of both
Pinky Swett and Mrs. Bray, _alias_ Hoyt, _alias_ Jewett, charged with
stealing a diamond ring of considerable value from a jewelry store. They
were sent to prison, in default of bail, to await trial. Mr. Dinneford
immediately went to the prison and had an interview with the two women,
who could give him no information about Andy beyond what Mrs. Bray had
already communicated in her hurried talk with Edith. Pinky could get no
trace of him after he had escaped. Mr. Dinneford did not leave the two
women until he had drawn from them a minute and circumstantial account
of all they knew of Edith's child from the time it was cast adrift. When
he left them, he had no doubt as to its identity with Andy. There was no
missing link in the chain of evidence.

The new life that had opened to little Andy since the dreary night on
which, like a stray kitten, he had crept into Andrew Hall's miserable
hovel, had been very pleasant. To be loved and caressed was a strange
and sweet experience. Poor little heart! It fluttered in wild terror,
like a tiny bird in the talons of a hawk, when Pinky Swett swooped down
and struck her foul talons into the frightened child and bore him off.

"If you scream, I'll choke you to death!" she said, stooping to his ear,
as she hurried him from the mission-house. Scared into silence, Andy did
not cry out, and the arm that grasped and dragged him away was so strong
that he felt resistance to be hopeless. Passing from Briar street, Pinky
hurried on for a distance of a block, when she signaled a street-car.
As she lifted Andy upon the platform, she gave him another whispered
threat:

"Mind! if you cry, I'll kill you!"

There were but few persons in the car, and Pinky carried the child
to the upper end and sat him down with his face turned forward to the
window, so as to keep it as much out of observation as possible. He sat
motionless, stunned with sur