hink that very soon I could
have gone on no longer."

Quest's only reply was a little nod. Yet, notwithstanding his
imperturbability of expression, that little nod was wonderfully
sympathetic. Lenora leaned back in her place well satisfied. She felt that
she was understood.

By Quest's directions, the automobile was brought to a stand-still at a
point where it skirted the main railway line, and close to the section
house which he had appointed for his rendezvous with Laura. She had
apparently seen their approach and she came out to meet them at once,
accompanied by a short, thick-set man whom she introduced as Mr. Horan.

"This is Mr. Horan, the section boss," she explained.

Mr. Horan shook hands.

"Say, I've heard of you, Mr. Quest," he announced. "The young lady tells
me you are some interested in that prisoner they lost off the cars near
here."

"That's so," Quest admitted. "We'd like to go to the spot if we could."

"That's dead easy," the boss replied. "I'll take you along in the hand
car. I've been expecting you, Mr. Quest, some time ago."

"How's that?" the criminologist asked.

Mr. Horan expelled a fragment of chewing tobacco and held out his hand for
the cigar which Quest was offering.

"They've been going the wrong way to work, these New York police," he
declared. "Just because there was a train on the other track moving
slowly, they got it into their heads that Macdougal had boarded it and was
back in New York somewhere. That ain't my theory. If I were looking for
James Macdougal, I'd search the hillsides there. I'll show you what I mean
when we get alongside."

"You may be right," Quest admitted. "Anyway, we'll start on the job."

The section boss turned around and whistled. From a little side track two
men jumped on to a hand-car, and brought it round to where they were
standing. A few yards away, the man who was propelling it--a great
red-headed Irishman--suddenly ceased his efforts. Leaning over his pole,
he gazed at Quest. A sudden ferocity darkened his coarse face. He gripped
his mate by the arm.

"See that bloke there?" he asked, pointing at Quest.

"The guy with the linen collar?" the other answered. "I see him."

"That's Quest, the detective," the Irishman went on hoarsely. "That's the
man who got me five years in the pen, the beast. That's the man I've been
looking for. You're my mate, Jim, eh?"

"I guess so," the other grunted. "Are you going to try and do him in?"

"You wait!