tired of the game.

But Philo Gubb was back the next night, waiting in the shadow of the
doorway of Willcox Hall. He did not progress very rapidly toward the
goal of the reward, but he counted it all good practice.

But being beaten twice in succession by Joe Henry aroused his
suspicion.

Joe Henry ran a small carting business. He had three teams and three
drays, and a small stable on Locust Street, on the alley corner. He
was a great friend of Pie-Wagon Pete and he ate at the Pie-Wagon.

Philo Gubb, after leaving Mr. Medderbrook, had not intentionally
picked up Joe Henry. On his way to the Pie-Wagon it had been necessary
for him to pass the alley opposite Joe Henry's stable and his
detective instinct told him to hide himself behind a manure bin in the
alley and watch the stable. In the warm June dusk he had crouched
there, watching and waiting.

Mr. Gubb could see into the stable, but there was not much to see. The
stable boy sat at the door, his chair tipped back, until a few minutes
after eleven, when one of Joe Henry's drays drove up with a load of
baled hay.

Philo Gubb heard the voices of the men as they hoisted the hay to the
hay-loft, and he saw Joe Henry helping with the hoisting-rope. The hay
was water-soaked. Water dripped from it onto the floor of the stable.

But nothing exciting occurred, and Philo Gubb was about to consider
this a dull evening's work, when Joe Henry appeared in the doorway, a
pitchfork in one hand and the slab of pine in the other. He looked up
and down the street and then, with surprising agility, sprang across
the street toward where Philo Gubb lay hid. With a wild cry, Philo
Gubb fled. The pitchfork clattered at his feet, but missed him, and
he had every advantage of long legs and speed. His heels clattered on
the alley pave, and Joe Henry's clattered farther and farther behind
at each leap of the Correspondence School detective.

* * * * *

"All right, you explain," said Joe Henry sullenly.

"Now you ain't to breathe a word of this, cross-your-heart,
hope-to-die, Philo Gubb. Nor you neither, Billy," said Pie-Wagon Pete.
"Listen! Me an' Joe Henry ain't what we let on to be. That's why we
don't want to be follered. We're detectives. Reg'lar detectives. From
Chicago. An' we're hired by the Law an' Order League to run down them
gools. We're right clost onto 'em now, ain't we, Joe? An' that's why
we don't want to have no one botherin' us. You woul