Wizard Will, the Wonder Worker. Ingraham Prentiss

a ball of putty, wrapped with tin-foil, in his pistol, and even with it he left his mark in the dead centre of your forehead, for it is bruised; but had it been lead, you would have been a dead man."

      "Great Heavens! did you do that?" asked Schuyler Cluett.

      "I did."

      "Rayford, I know not what to say; but as you have saved my life, I will call the debt square between us; but see, he is not dead, and I will put him in his carriage and send him to a hospital, for we must look to our own safety now."

      This was done; the body of the wounded, unconscious man was placed in the carriage that had brought him out, and the driver ordered to take him to a hospital.

      Then the two friends entered their own carriage, and were driven, by another road, rapidly back to the city.

      The next morning the following notice of the affair appeared in the morning papers:

"A MYSTERIOUS DUEL

      "At dawn yesterday morning a young gentleman evidently from the country, judging from his dress and appearance, went to Nailor's livery stable and sought to hire a saddle-horse for a few hours; but, upon the price of the animal being demanded, as he was an utter stranger to the foreman, he called for a carriage and driver, and ordered the latter to drive him to a spot on the Schuylkill river, between the Laurel Hill Cemetery and the Wissahickon creek, and to lose no time in getting there.

      "Upon reaching the spot he left the vehicle, just as another carriage drove up in the distance, and from it alighted two gentlemen.

      "There the stranger walked on and met them, reports his driver, and the three conversed together for a moment; then two of them threw off their overcoats, while the third paced off a certain distance and, after loading two weapons taken from a case, handed them to the duelists.

      "Word was then given, the driver supposes – for he was too far off to hear – and the pistols flashed together, one man staggering, as though wounded, the other falling as though dead.

      "The driver was then called, and the one who lay prostrate was raised and placed in the vehicle which was ordered to drive with all speed to the Hospital, the others entering the other carriage and driving rapidly off in another direction.

      "Upon being questioned by our reporter, the driver of the stranger said that the other duelist was a young society man about town, but he did not, or pretended not to know his name.

      "He said the stranger's bullet had wounded him in the head, as he wore a handkerchief about it, but there was no blood-stain visible.

      "The comrade of the alleged society-man was also a young gentleman of this city, but whom the driver pretended not to know.

      "Going to the Hospital our reporter discovered that the stranger was there.

      "He had a watch, chain, seal-ring, and sleeve buttons all of good value, and a pocket book containing several hundred dollars in bank-bills, but not a slip of paper, or anything to solve his identity.

      "He was shot just over the heart, and the surgeons feared to probe the wound, which they say will doubtless prove fatal though there is the slightest chance for his recovery, as he possesses a fine physique and the appearance of an iron constitution.

      "Reporters and detectives are busy trying to solve the mystery, and our readers will be informed if aught is discovered regarding this strange affair."

      CHAPTER V. – The Boy Protector

      AGAIN to the crowded metropolis my story shifts, and to a part of the grand city where dwell those of the humbler walks in life.

      Here are no brown-stone fronts, no elegant homes, but the imprint of poverty is upon all.

      Long years before the place was a fashionable locality; but the rapid growth of the city forced the wealthy residents up town, and into their homes, not then as now, superb structures, palatial in their fittings, the poorer classes moved, to again give place to those of a still lower strata of the society that goes to make up the world to be found in metropolitan life.

      In a tenement-flat, on the fourth floor of a dingy-looking building, a woman sat alone, a piece of embroidery in her hands.

      The flat consisted of four rooms, one large one in the front, with a hall-room adjoining, and the same in the rear.

      Those in the front were used as sitting-room and bed-room; those in the rear, the larger one for a kitchen and dining-room combined, the smaller for a sleeping-chamber, for there was a cot in it.

      The furniture was very scant, and cheap-looking, there being nothing more than was actually necessary for use.

      But an air of cleanliness was upon all, and the woman who sat alone in the front room had the appearance of one reared in refinement, one who had seen better days ere she had come to feel the pinching of poverty.

      She was neatly clad in a black cashmere dress that was a trifle seedy, and which appeared to have been often brushed.

      Her form was slender, very graceful, and her face was beautiful yet sad, while her large eyes were sunken and inflamed as though from weeping.

      The work she was engaged upon ill accorded with the rooms and surroundings, for she was embroidering a silk scarf of a rare and costly pattern, and she kept it folded closely in a clean towel, excepting the part upon which her slender, skilful fingers worked.

      An easel stood near her with a box of paints and brushes, and a half-finished painting was before her, a landscape scene, with a cosy country house, an old mill, a brook, and a valley stretching away in the distance.

      Suddenly her eyes were raised from her work, and rested upon the canvas.

      "Dear, dear old Brookside! how I long to see you once again, and yet I dare not go, even though I should have to beg my bread.

      "Not one word in all these long, weary, wretched years have I heard from those whom I love so dearly, and deserted to become the wife of —a scoundrel!

      "Heaven forgive me that rash act; and forgive me for bringing sorrow upon my parents and poor Kent; but I was fascinated by that wretch – yes, fascinated, as though by a snake, for it was not love I felt, as now I hate him – no, no, I should not say that of the dead, of the father of my children," and she dropped her face in her hands and burst into tears.

      Thirteen years have passed away since the reader last beheld her who sits there sobbing like a child, and the once beautiful girl of eighteen, pretty Ruby Raymond, the miller's daughter, has sadly changed in all that time.

      Almost from the moment that she left her lovely, happy home, deserting her parents, and flying from the love of honest, brave Kent Lomax, her miseries had begun; and, too proud to return to dear old Brookside, though deserted by her husband, whom she afterward had heard was dead, she struggled on to support herself and her two children.

      Not a word had she heard from her parents, and she would not write to them, fearing a rebuff.

      Not a word had she heard from Kent Lomax, and, after all that she had done to break his heart, she would not seek his aid in her distress.

      She had sewed, embroidered, and then taken up painting as a means of support; but her income was small, and she had to live very humbly.

      Her children she sent to the public school, and she clothed them as well as she could.

      "Oh! if I could only get a little money saved up, that, in disguise, I could go down to Brookside and see them all there, though they know me not!

      "I could leave my children with good hearted Mrs. Lucas, next door, and be gone but a few days, for I only wish to see the dear old home, to gaze upon the faces of my parents, to see Kent, and then come back to my wretchedness and toil; but I feel I could work the better if I could go.

      "Still, I cannot, for it would take nearly fifty dollars to go and return, and I have but ten saved up, and it would not be right, if I had the money to spend it thus, for what if I should be taken sick, what would my little ones do?"

      Again she buried her face in her hands and wept, to start suddenly, hastily drying her eyes, and, as a second knock came at the door,