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ENCOUNTER BY THE RIVER
33

How could I tell them of Keeban? My own mother was sorry for me when I told her. She took the strong line she always does; she considered herself to blame for having taken in Jerry, twenty-eight years ago, and with no knowledge of his blood, rearing a child with unknown capacities for crime and putting him into a position to harm others.

Dorothy's people that day proclaimed a reward of ten thousand dollars for the taking of Jerry Fanneal, dead or alive; and my father, on that same day, put up ten more. He sent pictures of Jerry to all the papers and himself supplied the minute descriptions telegraphed to St. Louis, Cleveland, Denver, Philadelphia, New York, everywhere.

They set the whole world after Jerry while I—I, in those days, went down to business and tried to do it, there in my office with my name on the door, next to the door which had borne Jerry's name.

But now his name was gone. They dissolved it with acid, so that no one could see that the gold leaf on the glass had ever formed his initial; and they burned every sheet of paper with his name on it. So there by day, beside his