It so happened that Fitzgerald found himself in Syracuse at this time. Fortune had smiled upon him. He had carried the fifty dollars he received from Hugo Richmond to the gaming-table, and contrary to the usual fortune in such cases had won steadily¹ till he had a fund of ten times the amount. Ordinarily he would have kept on, but now he had a definite object in view, and this was to revenge himself upon his faithless employer.

"Why was I such a fool as to harm the boy?"263 he had asked himself more than once. "The cunning villain² schemed to get me into his power, and he has done so. I do not dare to expose him, because in so doing I should risk my own life. Why did I not send him out of the country merely, and then claim the reward?"

But the past could not be recalled, and though Fitzgerald heartily³ wished the boy alive, he always thought of him as lying dead at the bottom of a well in a far Western State. His busy brain was trying to contrive⁴ some plan of revenge, when he chanced to see a poster of North's circus. Robert's name was not on the bill, as he was only a substitute, not the regular rider.

The performance had commenced when Fitzgerald entered.

He looked on with languid indifference⁵ till the time came for Robert to enter the ring.

When Fitzgerald saw the boy, whom he supposed to be dead, riding in the ring, he was as much startled as if he had seen some one arise from the dead. Could he be deceived? No. There could be no such close resemblances between two boys as between the rider and Robert Rudd.

264

"Yes, it is he!" decided⁶ Fitzgerald, and his heart was filled with gladness. As we know, the gladness had a selfish source, but he was certainly overjoyed to think that the boy was alive and well.

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