see, my outlaw got tired of being an
outlaw, so he asked me to get him some 'togs,' meaning clothes, you
know, so I went an' looked in the stable an' found these."

"You don't mean to say that you stole them, Imp?"

"'Course not!" he answered reproachfully. "I left Peter sixpence an' a
note to say I would pay him for them when I got my pocket-money, so
help me, Sam!"

"Ah, to be sure!" I nodded. We were close to the old boat-house now,
and upon the Imp's earnest solicitations I handed over my bundles and
hid behind a tree, because, as he pointed out, "his outlaw might not
like me to see him just at first."

Having opened each package with great care and laid out their contents
upon a log near by, the Imp approached the ruined building with signs
of the most elaborate caution, and gave three loud, double knocks. Now
casting my eyes about, I espied a short, heavy stick, and picking it
up, poised it in my hand ready in the event of possible contingencies.

The situation was decidedly unpleasant, I confess, for I expected
nothing less then to be engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle
within the next few minutes; therefore, I waited in some suspense,
straining my eyes to wards the shadows with my fingers clasped tight
upon my bludgeon.

Then all at once I saw a shape, ghostly and undefined, flit swiftly
from the gloom of the boat-house, and next moment a convict was
standing beside the Imp, gaunt and tall and wild-looking in the
moonlight. His hideous clothes, stained with mud and the green slime
of his hiding-places, hung upon him in tatters, and his eyes,
deep-sunken in his pallid face, gleamed with an unnatural brightness as
he glanced swiftly about him--a miserable, hunted creature, worn by
fatigue, and pinched with want and suffering.

"Did ye get 'em, sonny?" he inquired, in a hoarse, rasping voice.

"Aye, aye, comrade," returned the Imp; "all's well!"

"Bless ye for that, sonny!" he exclaimed, and with the words he fell to
upon the food devouring each morsel as it was handed to him with a
frightful voracity, while his burning, restless eyes glared about him,
never still for a moment.

Now as I noticed his wasted form and shaking limbs, I knew that I could
master him with one hand. My weapon slipped from my slackened grasp,
but at the sound, slight though it was, he turned and began to run. He
had not gone five yards, however, when he tripped and fell, and before
he could rise I was standing ove