have seen the
newspapers. In passing I may say that it isn't much to your credit that
you had to fall back upon the methods of the yeggmen."

"There wasn't any other way," protested the small man. "The papers were
locked up in the cash-box of the safe, and young Blount carried the only
key."

"It was crude; not at all worthy of a man of your ability, Gibbert. And
if the newspapers tell it straight, you came near being caught. How did
that happen?"

"Blount went to a ball, and I shadowed him. His girl was there, and it
looked like a safe bet that he'd stay to see the lights put out. But he
didn't."

"Well, never mind; you got the papers, I suppose?"

The company detective drew a thick envelope from his pocket and laid it
upon the desk. The vice-president tore it open and read rapidly through
the file of letters it had enclosed, tearing them one by one from the
hold of the brass fastener at the upper left-hand corner as he glanced
them over. "The chuckle-headed fools!" he gritted, apostrophizing the
writers of the letters. And then: "Gibbert, I'd like to go into this a
little deeper, if we had time; I'd like to know why in hell every man in
this State with whom we've had a private business arrangement found it
necessary to spread the details out on paper and send them to young
Blount! Here; burn these things as I hand them to you."

The small man struck a match and, using the wide-mouthed metal cuspidor
for an ash-pan, lighted the letters one at a time as they were given to
him. When the cinder skeleton of the final sheet had been crushed into
ashes, he rose from his knees and reached for his hat.

"Any other orders?" he asked.

"No; nothing more. You are reasonably sure that you haven't been
recognized here by any of our local people?"

"I've kept the 'make-up' on most of the time. I've been in Mr. Gantry's
office a couple of times, and in Mr. Kittredge's once, and neither of
them caught on to me."

"That's good. You'd better go now. O'Brien has gone after Gantry and
Kittredge, and I don't care to have them find you here. Better take the
first train back to Chicago. These mutton-headed police here might
possibly get on your track, and we don't want to have to explain
anything to them."

Five minutes after the small man had dropped from the step of the "008,"
to disappear in the box-car shadows, Gantry and Kittredge came down the
yard and entered the private car. Again the vice-president said, "How
are you?