"Oh! I don't know. You might stumble and break your neck. One or two men have done it."
"Oh! I'll be careful," I laughed. "I'm pretty sure-footed."
"You need to be—there. You say your dog's a good fighter?"
"He's a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever saw. I never fought him, but I had a negro boy who used to take him off till I stopped him."
"Well, I'll find him—that is, I'll find where he went."
I thanked him and strolled over across town to try to get a glimpse of the "Angel of the Lost Children." I saw her in a carriage with another young girl, and as I gazed at her she suddenly turned her eyes and looked straight at me, quite as if she had expected to see me, and the smile she gave me, though only that which a pleasant thought wings, lighted my heart for a week.
A day or two later my detective friend dropped into my office.
"Well, I have found him." His face showed that placid expression which, with him, meant deep satisfaction. "The police have him—are holding him in a case, but you can identify and get him. He was in the hands of a negro dog-stealer and they got him in a raid. They pulled one of the toughest joints in town when there was a fight going on and pinched a full load. The nigger was among them. He put up a pretty stiff fight and they had to hammer him good before they quieted him. He'll go down for ninety days sure. He was a fighter, they said—butted men right and left."
"I'm glad they hammered him—you're sure it's Dix?"
"Sure; he claimed the dog; said he'd raised him. But it didn't go. I knew he'd stolen him because he said he knew you."