.

BETTY LEAVES BELLE PLAIN.
Hannibal had devoted himself loyally to the judge's glorification, and Betty heard all about the letter, the snuffing of the candles and the reward of five thousand dollars.

It vastly increased the child's sense of importance and satisfaction when he discovered she had known nothing of these matters until he told her of them.
"Why, where would Judge Price get so much money, Hannibal ?" she asked, greatly astonished.
"He won't have to get it, Miss Betty; Mr.Mahaffy says he don't reckon no one will ever tell who wrote the letter--he 'lows the man who done that will keep pretty mum--he just dassent tell!" the boy explained.
"No, I suppose not--" and Betty saw that perhaps, after all, the judge had not assumed any very great financial responsibility.

"He can't be a coward, though, Hannibal!" she added, for she understood that the risk of personal violence which he ran was quite genuine.

She had formed her own unsympathetic estimate of him that day at Boggs' race-track; Mahaffy in his blackest hour could have added nothing to it.