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There was no particular reason why Billy Byrne should have felt toomen the finer sentiments which are so cherished a possession of those ently born and raised, even after they have learned that all women are not as was the feminine ideal of their boyhood

Billy's mother, always foul-mouthed and quarrelsome, had been a veritable demon when drunk, and drunk she had been whenever she could, by hook or crook, raise the price of whiskey Never, to Billy's recollection, had she spoken a word of endearment to him; and so terribly had she abused him that even while he was yet a little boy, scarce out of babyhood, he had learned to view her with a hatred as deep-rooted as is the affection of most little children for their mothers

When he had come to man's estate he had defended himself from the woman's brutal assaults as he would have defended himself from another man--when she had struck, Billy had struck back; the only thing to his credit being that he never had struck her except in self-defense Chastity in wo to joke of--he did not believe that it existed; for he judged other women by the one he knew best--his mother And as he hated her, so he hated the since she not only was a woman, but a woe and inexplicable that the suggestion of the girl's probable fate should have affected Billy Byrne as it did He did not stop to reason about it at all--he siainst the creatures that had borne the girl away Outwardly Billy showed no indication of the turotta find her, bo," he said to Theriere "We gotta find the skirt"

Ordinarily Billy would have blustered about the terrible things he would do to the objects of his wrath when once he had theely quiet--only the firray eyes gave token of the iron resolution within

Theriere, who had been walking slowly to and fro about the dead men, now called the others to him

"Here's their trail," he said "If it's as plain as that all the on't be long in overhauling the"

Before he had the words half out of histhe well-marked spoor of the samurai