“Go on, go on!” urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read:  “’At six o’clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and, owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought under control.  Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought to save themselves.  It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means small.’”

“I’m going down there!  I’m going down there!” Lizzie cried out here, breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.

“But, Lizzie—­”

“You needn’t try to stop me, I’m going.  Becky’s down there somewhere, and mebbe she’s alive and hurt and needs something, and I’m going to see. You needn’t come if you’re afraid, but I’m going!”

The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and the three went on together toward the burned district.

“What yer doin’ here?” asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove Street.  “Go back! ’t ain’t no place for anybody that hain’t got business here.”

“I’m looking for little Becky Hawkins,—­one of the girls in our store,” answered Lizzie.

“Becky Hawkins?”

“Yes; do you know her?”

“Should think I did.  This is my beat,—­known her all her life pretty much.”

“Did she get out,—­is she alive?” asked Lizzie, breathlessly.

“Yes, she’s alive; she’s down there in that corner house with her friend Tim.”

The policeman’s lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,—­a smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what the Riker girls had said she was,—­a little Cove Street hoodlum,—­while Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that “corner house.”  Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie’s sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman had advised, adding,—­

“We are decent girls, and—­it’s a disgrace to have anything to do with such a lot as Becky and her family and—­”

“What yer talkin’ ’bout?” suddenly interrupted the policeman,—­“what yer talkin’ ’bout?  Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer!  Come down here ‘n’ see what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!” and he wheeled around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow him.