The nice lady was looking rather stupefied as Wesley approached her.

"Where in the name of sense did you get that awful child?" she demanded.

"He is a young gentleman who has been stopping Elnora and eating her
lunch every day, part of the time with the assistance of his brother
and sister, while our girl went hungry. Brownlee told me about it at the
store. It's happened three days running. The first time she went without
anything, the second time Brownlee's girl took her to lunch, and the
third a crowd of high school girls bought a lot of stuff and met them at
the bridge. The youngsters seemed to think they could rob her every day,
so I went to see their father about having it stopped."

"Well, I should think so!" cried Margaret.

"There were three of them, Margaret," said Wesley, "that little
fellow----"

"Hyena, you mean," interpolated Margaret.

"Hyena," corrected Wesley gravely, "and another boy and a girl, all
equally dirty and hungry. The man was dead. They thought he was in a
drunken sleep, but he was stone dead. I brought the little boy with me,
and sent the officers and other help to the house. He's half starved.
I want to wash him, and put clean clothes on him, and give him some
supper."

"Have you got anything to put on him?"