f you and the sergeant and every other
available man connected with the precinct were out searching for the two
swindlers, instead of trying to send a poor, almost friendless, lad to
prison. If you arrested half as many criminals as you do innocent men,
it wouldn't take long to rid this city of crime."

So stinging was this rebuke that the reporters were busy writing down
the words of the judge, and before they had finished, the magistrate
said:

"Does your guardian treat you well, Bob?"

"Why, sir, I suppose so, sir; but he scolds me a lot. He seems to think
that every time he sends me out to deliver an order, that I should come
back within a quarter of an hour, no matter whether I have to go one
block or twenty."

"How much does he pay you?"

"Two dollars a week, sir."

"What do you read at night?"

"About farming and ranching out West, sir."

"Then you want to go out West?"

"Yes, sir. I'm going just as soon as I have money enough. I have saved
ten dollars already towards going."

"Huh! What becomes of your charge that the boy has evil associates, Mr.
Officer?" snapped the magistrate, as he heard Bob's reply. "Any boy who
earns two dollars a week, and has managed to save ten, surely can't have
any bad habits.

"Bob, you are discharged. The disgrace to which you have been subjected
of being arrested and brought to court is an outrage, and I wish there
was some way that you could obtain redress from the officers who
subjected you to it, but unfortunately there is not."

Reaching into his pocket, the magistrate drew forth some bills, from
which he selected one of the denomination of five dollars, and handed it
to Bob.

"Put this with your ten dollars," he continued. "It will help some
toward getting you out West, and now you go back to Mr. Dardus, and tell
him that Judge Bristol said that your arrest was an outrage. Clerk, call
the next case."

If Bob had been bewildered by the circumstances that had led to his
being brought to court, he was still more so with the sudden turn in
events that had resulted in his release, and it was not until one of
the court attaches good-naturedly advised him to leave the court room as
soon as he could, that he realized he was again free.

But in his haste to obey, he suddenly remembered the reporter whose
interest in him had been of such assistance, and he stopped and looked
about the courtroom for him. But Foster and the other reporters were
busy telephoning the st