-- To CARIBOO AND BACK }+—

He told how he had somehow grown up in
the slums of London. No father, no mother;
nothing but kicks and hard words. “Steal?
Why of course, I stole. I had to, or starve. But
I never took anything much,” he declared.
“Just swiped a bit of grub when I got the
chance.”

Then he told how some one took him to a
Mission School, and when his teacher heard him
sing he was put in the choir. After that he
had met with kindness and help. One night he
heard a man speaking in a public place and he
told all about the new West Land away off on
the Pacific, where there was such wealth of
gold in the streams and the mountains that any
one could pick it up for themselves.

“And so I says to myself, that’s the land
for me,” Arthur concluded. “I shipped as
cabin boy first, like I told you; then I stowed
away—and here I am.”

“All that doesn’t explain why you were
trying to rob Betty of her trinkets,” the profes-
sor spoke sternly.

Arthur hung his head and for the first time
real shame stained his pale cheeks red. “I
saw she had a bagful this afternoon, and—and

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