CHAPTER XXIV
Conclusion
After a happy week spent at his little home on the Sound, Wizard Will returned to his duties in town. He had made friends with the old black man and woman in the cabin on the hill near the cottage, and had found them most willing to do all in their power to help his mother, and had secretly made an arrangement with them to look after matters in his absence, the old man to look after the horse, and his wife to milk the cow.
He had also ingeniously attached a wire from the cottage to the cabin, with a bell at the latter, so that his mother could call for aid if she needed it.
With country air, pretty scenery, pleasant quarters, fresh milk and vegetables, and no worry about their daily bread, Mrs. Raymond rapidly improved in health, and life became worth the living for her, as she strove hard to shut out the past.
Pearl started to school and made friends, and some kind-hearted neighbors called upon the newcomers, so that the mother and daughter were not wholly alone, while Wizard Will, when at home, gave them many a pleasant drive about the country, and row or sail upon the Sound.
But Will did not neglect his work in the city, and, setting to work with energy and skill, he formed his League of Boy Detectives, and it was but a very short while before the police force recognized their ability and acknowledged it, treating their young captain with as much respect as they did their own commanders.
In due time Ed Ellis the kidnapper and murderer was tried, found guilty upon the testimony of Wizard Will, and executed.
Mr. Rossmore came on to the trial and urged Wizard Will once more to become his adopted son, but Mrs. Raymond would not hear of it and also declined positively to allow her son to bring the kind-hearted gentleman out to see her, as he wished to do.
Will felt hurt at this, especially as his mother gave no other reason for her strange conduct than that she would not see any strangers.
With deep regret at Will's refusal to go with him, Mr. Rossmore returned to his home in Maryland, and the boy settled himself to hard work to win greater fame in the career that he had drifted into by accident.
Though he had several times seen Colonel Ivey in the street he had avoided him, as his mother had earnestly requested him to do, and the gallant soldier little dreamed that the name his eyes fell upon now and then in the papers as Wizard Will, was the one whose three-dollar gold-piece he had found on Thanksgiving morning, and still wore as a charm upon his watch-chain, while he deeply mourned for the woman he had learned to love, and the children who had crept into his heart as though they were his own flesh and blood.
One of the first duties that the brave young officer set for himself to accomplish with his juvenile band of Secret Service scouts was the running to earth of the "Land Sharks," and how he accomplished the giant task is written in the Police History of New York City, wherein no name stands out in bolder relief than that of Wizard Will, the Boy Ferret of New York.
Those who wish to know how he accomplished his task, must read "Wizard Will's Street Scouts," the next number of the Tip Top Tales.
The End
Comments