yway, 'cause I reckon I'm
goin' to die. They can't send a dying boy to the Reform School, can
they?"

"Have you been working here at this place ever since you disappeared from
Riverport?" asked Bristles.

"Jest about all the time, and gettin' nigh starved in the bargain, 'case
they ain't got enough here to feed us," the boy replied, dejectedly.

"First of all," said Fred, "get that idea out of your head that you're
going to die, just because of a plain fractured leg. In a month from now
you'll be walking around again, and before three months are gone, you
wouldn't know anything had ever happened to you."

"That's right kind o' you to say such nice things, mister," Tom Flanders
muttered, "but a feller that's headed straight for the Reform School
ain't carin' much whether he lives or dies."

Fred looked around at his three chums.

"We'd better tell him, hadn't we?" he asked, in a whisper.

"Sure, the poor fellow's suffered enough as it is, I reckon," Bristles
replied.

"Just what I say too," added Colon.

"So go ahead, Fred, and open his eyes. I only hope it'll be a lesson
he'll never forget, and start him along a different road after this," Sid
gave as his opinion.

"Look here, Tom," began Fred, "you've been hiding-out for weeks now, and
all the time believing that they'd send you to the electric chair or the
Reform School at any rate, just because you deliberately shoved that
little Willie Brandon into the river, and it looked as if he had been
drowned. But Tom, they worked over him long enough to bring him back to
life again. You ran away before anyone could tell you, and your folks
have been nearly crazy trying to find you. Tom, you can come home again,
and nobody's going to punish you. It's all right, Tom, and we'll see
that you get to where your folks can have you, before to-night!"

The wretched boy looked at Fred for a full minute as though he could
hardly believe the glad tidings; then he began to cry like a baby.

CHAPTER XX

WHEN THE CIRCUS CAME TO RIVERPORT

"You'll go home if we can get you there, won't you, Tom?" asked Fred,
after a little time had clasped, and the poor fellow on the hay seemed
better able to reply, having mastered his emotions.

"I'd be a fool not to say yes!" he exclaimed, eagerly. "'Specially when
you tell me my folks they want me home again. I've lived a dog's life
ever since I run away. Hain't never dared to ask about news from
Riverport, 'case I re