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56 WIZARD WILL, THE WONDER WORKER.
‘Your father, Mr. Rossmore, is a very rich man, and he has offered
fifty thousand dollars for your return, and I will get it.
“Now, my boy, I wish you to study these photographs of your old
home, and here is the name of the servants who were at the house
then, and your nurse was anold coloured woman, Auntie Peggy.
“These are the clothes you had on when you were stolen; they
are ragged now, for you wore them a long time, and when you got
others youkept these. You had: this ring on your forefinger then,
but you can wear it now on your left hand little finger—see, it
just fits.”
“What has become of the real little boy that was stolen?” asked —
4Vill, quietly.
The men all exchanged peculiar glances with each other, and one
gaid: . Tell him, Jerry, so that he’ll know we won’t stand any non-
sense.
“Well, he would not behave as we wished him to, and he would
remember too much, and so we dared not take him back to get the
reward, you see.”
‘* And is ho dead ?”
“You've hit it, he is, for one day he left our camp, as we were
* erossing the prairie in Nebraska, not very many miles from Fort
McPherson, and we found him lying under a solitary tree, mighty near
- dead from starvation ; and he died, and we buried him there, cutting
his name into the tree,-as a monument, as any emigrant folks would
who had lost a young one.
‘Poor little fellow, he had better have done as you wished, and so
been able to get home.’’
“Boy, you've got wisdom above your years, and you'll play our
little game for us with a handful of trumps and a card or two up your
sleeve, I can tell you.
“T guess you've been nipped by hunger, and wish a soft thing of it
for life, don’t you ?”’ . ,
ss Sit.
* And you'll talk our way, won’t you?”
** Oh, yes, sir; only it will be very sad for my poor mother and sister
to lose me.” ‘
‘No, for you can write them that you had a chance to go West, and
I’ll take the letter and some money to them, and you bet we'll keep
them from want and send them lots of things, while if you don’t like
it where you go, you can just skip out after you’ve got together a nico
little sum of money, for we don’t care so long as we get the reward
for your return, and you shall have five thousand of that, for Til
keep you posted where we are, and you can have the money any time
you call for it.” . .
“This looks fair, sir; bat I hate to leave my mother and little
sister, though I do want to make money.” .
“Well, you write your mother a letter, and I’!l see that she gets it
‘to-morrow, and I’ll put a cool fifty in it for her, too.
“Now, write your letter, and then study over those photographs,
- this list of names, and the lesson I have here for you,’’ and Jerry
banded Will vavious slips of paper.
.