g the boys on such a hunt.

"I'd rather lose a hundred pocketbooks," she scolded herself, "than have
a finger of one of those boys hurt. I wish I hadn't said anything about
it."

As for the boys, they were beginning to despair of ever finding the
thief and were calling themselves all sorts of names for ever thinking
they would, when suddenly Chet walked out of the woods and almost upon
him.

It was so sudden that the boy almost yelled in his surprise, but all he
really did was clap his hand over his mouth and stare. For he had come
so softly that the man had not even heard him.

He was crouched over something that Chet could not see--probably the
stolen pocketbook. His revolver lay beside him on the ground, close to
his right hand.

With his heart in his mouth--for after all, with all his courage, he was
only a boy and the robber was a man, and armed at that--Chet crept
forward, fearful each second of stepping on a twig and giving his
presence away.

Nearer and nearer he crept, hardly daring to breathe, until he was right
behind the thief and the revolver was almost under his feet.

Then with a motion as quick as a cat's, he stooped and caught tip the
revolver. The next moment he stepped quickly back and covered the thief
with it.

"Hands up!" he cried. "Quick there, before I shoot!"

So sudden, so noiseless, had been his action that the thief was taken
completely by surprise. With an exclamation he reached his hand out for
his revolver, then, not finding it, stumbled to his feet.

"Hands up!" cried Chet sharply. "Quick, now. This blamed thing might go
off."

The man's hands went up, but he still kept his back to Chet, his little
furtive eyes glancing about for a means of escape.

"Turn around," Chet commanded, then as the man did not move he clicked
the trigger meaningly. "Say, I think you want to taste the lead in this
thing," he added, and there was something in his tone, boyish though it
was, that made the man turn quickly.

Chet uttered a gasp of recognition.

"So it _is_ you," he said. "I thought it was all the time, but I
couldn't be sure till I'd seen the color of your eyes. So you're really
the 'Codfish.' Please to meet you, old man."

"Say, cut that out," snarled the "Codfish," making as though to spring
upon Chet, but the latter waved his pistol and the man evidently changed
his mind, for he stood where he was, hands above his head, eyes glaring.

"And so there's the pocketbook and the ni