Again Fred’s honest kindly face had the same effect upon Sam that it had at the commencement of their street fight; he respected and trusted it unconsciously.

“Here!” said he, crawling along on the beam and handing back the package of knives, the last theft of which his father had complained.

“Yes, that is right,” said Fred, leaning down and taking it, “give them all back, if you can; that is what my father calls ‘making restitution,’ and then you won’t be a thief any longer.”

Something in the boy’s tone touched Sam’s heart still more; so he handed back one thing after another as rapidly as he could until nearly everything was restored.

“Bravo for you, Sam!  I won’t tell who took them, and there is a chance for you.  Here, give me your hand now, honor bright you’ll never come here again to steal, if I don’t tell my father.”

Sam looked at him a moment, as if he would read his very soul; then he said sulkily: 

“You’ll tell; I know you will, ’cause I licked you when you didn’t want me to; but you’ve got ’em all back, and I s’pose it won’t go very hard.”

“What won’t go very hard?”

“The prison.”

“You sha’n’t go to prison at all.  Here, give me your hand; I promise not to tell if you will promise not to steal any more.  Ain’t that fair?”

“Yes,” said Sam, a sudden change coming over his face, “but you will!”

“Try me and see.”

Sam slowly and really at a great deal of peril, considering his situation, put his rough, grimed hand into Fred’s—­a dishonest hand it was, and that more than the other thing made Fred recoil a little as he touched it; but that clasp sealed the compact between these two boys.  It began Fred Sargent’s revenge.

“Now be off, will you, before the clerks come?  They will see the things and catch you here.  I’ll be round to your house soon and we will see.”

Even in this short time Fred had formed a general plan for saving Sam.

The boy, stretching himself out flat, slipped down the transverse beam into the water, dived at once and came up under the bridge a few rods distant, then coolly passed down the river and swam to shore under a bunch of alder-bushes, by which he was concealed from the sight of the passers-by.

Fred sought his father, told him the story, then brought him to the spot, showed the goods which the boy had returned, and begged as a reward for the discovery to be allowed to conceal his name.

His father of course hesitated at so unusual a proposition; but there was something so very much in earnest in all Fred did and said that he became convinced it was best, for the present at least, to allow him to have his own way; and this he was very glad he had done when a few days after Fred asked him to do something for Sam Crandon.

“Sam Crandon?” he asked in surprise.  “Is not that the very boy I found you fighting in the street with?”