ctory. Count them, some one,
and think of the bottles and bottles of stuff they stand for. If it
sells as he says it will--then he will soon be rich: and so on, till
Sweetwater brought the garrulous Dick to a standstill by asking whether
Wellgood had been away for any purpose since he first came to town. He
received the reply that he had just come home from New York, where he
had been for some articles needed in his manufactory. Sweetwater felt
all his convictions confirmed, and ended the colloquy with the final
question:

"And where is his manufactory? Might be worth visiting, perhaps."

The other made a gesture, said something about northwest and rushed to
help a customer. Sweetwater took the opportunity to slide away. More
explicit directions could easily be got elsewhere, and he felt anxious
to return to Mr. Grey and discover, if possible, whether it would prove
as much a matter of surprise to him as to Sweetwater himself that the
man who answered to the name of Wellgood was the owner of a manufactory
and a barrel or two of drugs, out of which he proposed to make a
compound that would rob the doctors of their business and make himself
and this little village rich.

Sweetwater made only one stop on his way to Mr. Grey's hotel rooms,
and that was at the stables. Here he learned whatever else there was to
know, and, armed with definite information, he appeared before Mr. Grey,
who, to his astonishment, was dining in his own room.

He had dismissed the waiter and was rather brooding than eating. He
looked up eagerly, however, when Sweetwater entered, and asked what
news.

The detective, with some semblance of respect, answered that he had seen
Wellgood, but that he had been unable to detain him or bring him within
his employer's observation.

"He is a patent-medicine man," he then explained, "and manufactures
his own concoctions in a house he has rented here on a lonely road some
half-mile out of town."

"Wellgood does? the man named Wellgood?" Mr. Grey exclaimed with all the
astonishment the other secretly expected.

"Yes; Wellgood, James Wellgood. There is no other in town."

"How long has this man been here?" the statesman inquired, after a
moment of apparently great discomfiture.

"Just twenty-four hours, this time. He was here once before, when he
rented the house and made all his plans."

"Ah!"

Mr. Grey rose precipitately. His manner had changed.

"I must see him. What you tell me makes it all th