te and tottered down the
lane toward the more thickly settled part of the town. Under his arm
he carried a small bundle--a bundle wrapped in newspaper!

Detective Gubb waited until the old man was well in advance, and then
slipped from the hazel brush and followed him, observing all the rules
for Shadowing and Trailing as taught by the Rising Sun Detective
Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting. For three hours the old
man wandered the streets. Now he walked along Main Street, peering
anxiously into the faces of the pedestrians, with purblind eyes, and
now walking the residence streets. Detective Gubb kept close behind.

As ten o'clock struck from the clock in the High School tower, old
John Westcote quickened his steps a little and walked toward the
opposite end of the town, where the lumber-yards are. Down the hill
into the lumber district he walked, and Detective Gubb dodged from
tree to tree. Halfway down the hill the old man hesitated. He glanced
around. At his side was a mass of lilac bushes, seeming strangely out
of place among the huge piles of lumber. Without stopping, the old man
let the bundle slide from under his arm and fall on the walk. For a
moment it lay like a white spot on the walk, and then it moved rapidly
out of sight into the bushes.

Bundles do not move thus, unless assisted, but Philo Gubb was too far
away to see the hand he knew must have reached out for the bundle. He
ran rapidly, keeping in the sawdust that formed the unfruitful soil of
the lumber-yard, until he dared come no nearer, and then he climbed to
the top of the tallest lumber-pile and lay flat. He commanded every
side of the hillside lumber-yard, and he did not have long to wait.
From the lower side of the yard he saw a black figure emerge, cross
the street and disappear over the bank into the railway switch-yard
below. Mr. Gubb scrambled down and followed.

At the bank above the switch-yard he paused, keeping in a shadow, and
looked here and there. Flat cars and box cars stood on the tracks in
great numbers, most of them closed and sealed--some partly open. He
heard a car door grate as it was closed. He slipped down the bank and
crept on his hands and knees. He was halfway down the line of cars
when he heard a voice. It came from car 7887, C. B. & Q.

"Run all the breath out of me," said the voice in a wheeze.

"Well, did you get it?" whispered another voice.

"Sure I got it! Got something, anyway. Strike a match, Bill,