The police at once locked the prisoner up in a cell, sent for a surgeon, and asked Andy to telegraph to Mr. Giles Harding, the circus owner, at once.

When Andy came out of the police station, he found the boy who had assisted him waiting for him.

He was a bright-faced, pleasant-mannered lad, but his appearance suggested hard luck.

Andy gave him a dollar, and got his name.  It was Mark Hadley.  Andy was at once interested when the boy told him that his dead father had been a professional sleight-of-hand man in the west.

Mark Hadley had come to New York on the track of an old circus friend of his father.  This man, it turned out, was a relative of Dewey, masquerading now under the name of Vernon.

The man had told him that Dewey could help him out.  He did not know where Dewey was living, but understood he was about to marry a lady living at the boarding house where Mark had gone, to meet the fellow in a most sensational manner, indeed.

Andy invited Mark to call upon him later in the day, gave the youth his present address, and proceeded back to the boarding house to find his aunt.

The hour that followed was one of the strangest in Andy’s life.

There were reproaches, threats, cajolings, until Andy found out the true state of affairs.

It was only after he had proven to his humiliated and chagrined aunt that Dewey was a villain, that Miss Lavinia broke down and confessed that she had been a silly, sentimental woman.

It seemed that the letter Jim Tapp and Murdock had secured was from Mr. Graham, back at Fairview.

Graham had discovered in a secret bottom of the box Andy had left with him, a paper referring to a patent of Andy’s father.

As time had brought about, this paper entitled the heirs of the old inventor to quite large royalties on a new electrical device which had come into practical use after Mr. Wildwood’s death.

The plotters had gone at once to Miss Lavinia.  Her cupidity was aroused.  She quieted her conscience by giving Andy ten dollars at Tipton, and deciding to take charge of the royalty money “till he was of age.”

This was her story, told amid contrite tears and shame as Andy proved to her that Dewey was after her three thousand dollars, and would have escaped with it only for his decisive action.

Murdock had introduced her to Dewey.  The latter had pretended to be in love with her, had promised to marry her, and that day had induced the weak, silly old spinster to trust him with her little fortune.

“I have been a wicked woman!” Miss Lavinia declared.  “I will make amends, Andy.  You shall have your rights.  Come home with me.”

“Not till my engagement is over, aunt,” replied Andy, “and then only for a visit, if you wish it.  I love the circus life, and I seem to find just as many chances there to be good and to do good as in any other vocation.”