, but
not a crazy one. He passes under the name of Steve Wilson, and he is
lodging at Hobson's Patch."

"How do you know this?"

"Because I fell into talk with him. I thought little of it at the time,
nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter; but now
I'm sure it's the man. I met him on the cars when I went down the
line on Wednesday--a hard case if ever there was one. He said he was
a reporter. I believed it for the moment. Wanted to know all he could
about the Scowrers and what he called 'the outrages' for a New York
paper. Asked me every kind of question so as to get something. You bet
I was giving nothing away. 'I'd pay for it and pay well,' said he, 'if
I could get some stuff that would suit my editor.' I said what I thought
would please him best, and he handed me a twenty-dollar bill for my
information. 'There's ten times that for you,' said he, 'if you can find
me all that I want.'"

"What did you tell him, then?"

"Any stuff I could make up."

"How do you know he wasn't a newspaper man?"

"I'll tell you. He got out at Hobson's Patch, and so did I. I chanced
into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.

"'See here,' said the operator after he'd gone out, 'I guess we should
charge double rates for this.'--'I guess you should,' said I. He had
filled the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for all we
could make of it. 'He fires a sheet of this off every day,' said the
clerk. 'Yes,' said I; 'it's special news for his paper, and he's scared
that the others should tap it.' That was what the operator thought and
what I thought at the time; but I think differently now."

"By Gar! I believe you are right," said McGinty. "But what do you allow
that we should do about it?"

"Why not go right down now and fix him?" someone suggested.

"Ay, the sooner the better."

"I'd start this next minute if I knew where we could find him," said
McMurdo. "He's in Hobson's Patch; but I don't know the house. I've got a
plan, though, if you'll only take my advice."

"Well, what is it?"

"I'll go to the Patch to-morrow morning. I'll find him through the
operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I'll tell him that
I'm a Freeman myself. I'll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for
a price. You bet he'll tumble to it. I'll tell him the papers are at my
house, and that it's as much as my life would be worth to let him come
while folk were about. He'll see that that's horse sense. Let hi