"What did I start out to do, Clippers, my boy?"
"I see—I see! You are back with the man who killed the two that night—the strangler of the millionaire and the recluse. Mr. Broadbrim, you are invincible!"
That same day the Quaker stood face to face with a young girl whose eyes sparkled with delight, and when he placed his hand on a four-leaved clover she could not keep back her enthusiasm.
"It brought you luck, Mr. Broadbrim!" cried Nora Doon. "I knew when I placed it in your keeping that it would make certain your triumph, and at the same time become your protector. You kept it through thick and thin."
"Through the perils of land and sea, Miss Nora. In the midst of London it was my talisman, in the heart of the Atlantic, and even in the shadow of death in the Australian bush."
The law dealt terribly, but justly with Merle Macray.
Weeks and even months had elapsed since the double murder of the night of the 12th of April; but from across the ocean, whither he had tracked his man with the persistence of the bloodhound, Old Broadbrim handed him over to the mercies of the noose.
Both the detective and Dick Waters were rewarded by Foster Kipp, who soon afterward became Nora's husband, and the young Briton remained in America.
As for Belle Demona, she found her ranch plundered when she returned, and, rather than remain in the shadow of desolation, she fled from the avenging hand of Stareyes, and never again set foot within the boundaries of Ranch Robin.