"Ah, I see you are very compassionate for the girl all at once," said Jacob, eyeing Peter.
"I have reasons to be," replied Peter, spiritedly. "Were the girls hurt?"
"No; but Edith Jarney is very ill—."
"Very ill! What?" interrupted Peter.
"Brain fever, she's got."
"Ah, she is too good to live," said Peter, looking out his peephole again. Then turning quickly, with his peculiar little eyes turned up sidewise at Jacob, he said: "Say, Jacob, we must put our sleuths on the trail of that old drunkard, Billy Barton. He has been gone a long time, and not a single word from him."
"What do you want with the sot?" asked Jacob, mystified. "He's no good."
"That's my business—poor Billy," and Peter lapsed into a moody spell, for sometimes he seemed to have a little of the feelings of a natural heart; but this quality in him was as rare as the air on Pike's Peak. "His family must be cared for."
"Jarney's doing that," answered Jacob.
"Is he?" jerked out Peter, wrathfully. "I'll not allow it from him, the interloper!"