ared. "Will it change your feelings any if I promise to
ignore what happened here to-day--my trick with Miss Dare and what she
revealed and all that? If it will, I swear I won't even think of it any
more if I can help it. At all events, I won't tattle about it even to
the superintendent. It shall be a secret between you and me, and she
won't know but what it was her lover she talked to, after all."

"You are willing to do all this?" inquired Mr. Byrd.

"Willing and ready," cried the man. "I believe in duty to one's
superiors, but duty doesn't always demand of one to tell every thing he
knows. Besides, it won't be necessary, I imagine. There is enough
against this poor fellow without that."

"I fear so," ejaculated Mr. Byrd.

"Then it is a bargain?" said Hickory.

"Yes."

And Mr. Byrd held out his hand.

The rain had now ceased and they prepared to return home. Before leaving
the glade, however, Mr. Byrd ran his eye over the other's person and
apparel, and in some wonder inquired:

"How do you fellows ever manage to get up such complete disguises? I
declare you look enough like Mr. Mansell in the back to make me doubt
even now who I am talking to."

"Oh," laughed the other, "it is easy enough. It's my specialty, you see,
and one in which I _am_ thought to excel. But, to tell the truth, I
hadn't much to contend with in this case. In build I am famously like
this man, as you must have noticed when you saw us together in Buffalo.
Indeed, it was our similarity in this respect that first put the idea of
personifying him into my head. My complexion had been darkened already,
and, as for such accessories as hair, voice, manner, dress, etc., a
five-minutes' study of my model was sufficient to prime me up in all
that--enough, at least, to satisfy the conditions of an interview which
did not require me to show my face."

"But you did not know when you came here that you would not have to show
your face," persisted Mr. Byrd, anxious to understand how this man dared
risk his reputation on an undertaking of this kind.

"No, and I did not know that the biggest thunderstorm of the season was
going to spring up and lend me its darkness to complete the illusion I
had attempted. I only trusted my good fortune--and my wits," he added,
with a droll demureness. "Both had served me before, and both were
likely to serve me again. And, say she had detected me in my little
game, what then? Women like her don't babble."

There was