saw the tall dome of Illinois, the Art
Gallery in the distance, with the lagoon again gleaming through trees,
to be lost again, while roofs, windows, vistas of streets surrounded
me, and I could peep in at the windows we were passing; and then I
heard the cry of the guard, and noted the name as we slacked speed at
Mount Vernon Station, almost upon the roof of the Old Virginia
Building. I peered out as we drew up to this station in the air, and
drew back a little as a second train, moving in the opposite
direction, dashed by. I am in the rear car, and as we move away from
Mount Vernon, suddenly I have a vision of someone who must have flung
himself from the forward car at the last moment, and who is running
along the platform, and in the direction of the passing train, in
breathless haste, his head bare, his hat clutched in his swinging
hand.

It is Dave Brainerd, and as we tear around a curve and he is lost to
my sight, I am brought back to thoughts of business. Dave has
evidently 'struck a trail.' Wondering much, I stop at the north loop,
and standing with the Government Building to my right and the
Fisheries with its curving colonnades on my left, I gaze off upon the
blue and shining waters of the lake, and realize fully for the first
time the awful incongruity between all this stateliness and beauty and
our mission in its midst--a criminal hunt!

CHAPTER VII.

'IT WAS GREENBACK BOB.'

Our chief had arranged for us, and in advance of our arrival, that our
letters should be received at the bureau, where a desk was always at
our disposal; and a little before four o'clock I dropped in once more
to look for letters and ask if Dave had made a second appearance. The
letters were in waiting for both of us, but there was no news of Dave,
and, stowing the letters in my pocket, I sought once more the Court of
Honour; seating myself near the great MacMonnies Fountain, in the
shade of the Administration Building, where Dave could not fail to
find me, to read my letters and wait for him.

I was in no haste, with that magnificent court spread out before me,
and the blue dancing waves of Lake Michigan in the distance, Nature's
background for the great Peristyle, surmounted by that novel and
beautiful Columbus quadriga, in itself a work of art such as is seldom
seen, and with golden Justice, dominant and serene, commanding and
overlooking all.

Forgetting my letters, I let my eyes wander slowly from point to point
o