way?"

She shook her head.

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"You needn't," smiled Stafford. "They've gone to Portugal. It was
Pinto's machine and I don't suppose he had any other idea in the world
than to get back to his own beloved land. By the way, Pinto looks like
getting ten years. To satisfy myself in regard to Crewe, I telegraphed
to an Englishman at Finisterre, who is a good friend of mine and who
lives in a wild and isolated spot somewhere near the lighthouse, and he
sent me back a message to the effect that an aeroplane passed over
Finisterre yesterday afternoon soon after lunch time. That must be
friend Lollie."

She nodded.

"Do you know, I hope they get away. Is that rather dreadful of me?" she
said.

He shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. I believe the chief shares your hope. He has
queer views on things, and they irritate me sometimes. For example, he
doesn't think that the colonel is dead."

"But I thought you had found the body?"

"He gets over that by saying that it isn't the body," said Stafford with
a little laugh of annoyance. "It rather worries you after you have
decided that you've rounded up the gang. I still believe that it is the
colonel."

She thought a moment.

"I am inclined to agree with Sir Stanley," said she. "It isn't the sort
of thing that the colonel would do. Men like Colonel Boundary are never
without hope."

Stafford scratched his head.

"Well, if it isn't the colonel, he's gone; and please the pigs, we'll
never see him again! There is only the question of rounding up the
little people of the gang, and that won't be much trouble."

She put both her hands on his shoulders and looked at him smilingly.

"You're an optimist, dear," she said.

"Who wouldn't be?" he replied cheerfully. "You said that when the gang
was wound up we would drop our sad and lonely lives apart and form a
little gang of our own."

She laughed and kissed him, and he went back to his office to find that
his chief had already arrived and had asked for him. Sir Stanley was
reading the morning paper when Stafford came into his room, and his
first words brought consternation to the younger man.

"Stafford," he said, "this is not the body of the colonel. I've just
been to see it and I'm certain. Now, you've got to send a call out to
all stations throughout the country, particularly the south of England,
to look for a man, possibly clean-shaven, certainly without moustaches,
who will be