never fails."

The Sheriff smiled good-naturedly.

"Always kidding, ain't you, Billy," he said.

The boat started. She steamed slowly up the river, the members of the
posse on the upper deck on either side, scanning the shores carefully.
Occasionally the ferry-boat backed and ran closer to shore to permit a
nearer inspection of some skiff or to view some log left on the shore
by the last flood. Billy Getz, standing beside the Sheriff and P.
Gubb, called their attention to every shadow and lump on the shore.
The boat proceeded on her slow course and reached the channel between
an island and the Illinois shore. The wooded bank of the island rose
directly from the water, some of the water-elms dipping their roots
into the river. There was no place where a boat could be hidden, and
the ferry steamed slowly along. Billy Getz poked solemn-faced fun at
Mr. Gubb in the most serious manner, and Mr. Gubb was sternly haughty,
knowing he was being made sport of. His eyes rested with bird-like
intensity on the wooded shore of the island.

"Now, this combination of paper-hanging and detecting has its
advantages," said Billy Getz, with a wink at the Sheriff. "When a
man--"

Philo Gubb was not hearing him.

"The remarkableness of the similarity of nature to art is quite often
remarkable to observe," he said to the Sheriff, "and is seeming to
grow more so now and then from time to time. That piece of section of
woods right there is so naturally grown you might say it was torn
right off a roll of Dietz's 7462 Bessie John."

He stopped short.

"What's the matter?" asked Billy Getz nervously.

"Run the boat in there," said Philo Gubb excitedly. "Those verdures
ain't _like_ 7462 Bessie John; they _are_ 7462 Bessie John."

The Sheriff stared keenly at the spot indicated by Detective Gubb's
extended hand and, turning suddenly, said a word to the pilot in the
house at his side. The ferry veered and ran in toward the island. Not
until the boat was nearer the shore than a front row of the orchestra
seats to the back drop of a theater did the others on the boat
understand. Then the trick was seen and understood. The trees of the
shore were not all trees. One group was a painted canvas, copied
carefully by Greasy from Dietz's 7462 Bessie John at the behest of
Billy Getz. Stretched across a small indentation of the shore it made
a safe screen, unrecognizable a few rods from the shore, and behind
this bit of painted forest they found t