The Boy from the Ranch

My poor pets! a lady exclaimed, sorrowfully; "it is too bad. They all knew me so well; and ran to meet me, when they saw me coming; and seemed really pleased to see me, even when I had no food to give them." "Which was not often, my dear," Captain Ripon-her husband-said. "However it is, as you say, too bad; and I will bring the fellow to justice, if I can. There are twelve prize fowls-worth a couple of guineas apiece, not to mention the fact of their being pets of yours-stolen, probably by tramps; who will eat them, and for whom the commonest barn-door chickens would have done as well. There are marks of blood in two or three places, so they have evidently been killed for food. The house was locked up last night, all right; for you see they got in by breaking in a panel of the door. "Robson, run down to the village, at once, and tell the policeman to come up here; and ask if any gypsies, or tramps, have been seen in the neighborhood." The village lay at the gate of Captain Ripon's park, and the gardener soon returned with the policeman.