me," he muttered at length.
"Madge Scarlet has shadowed me for this very purpose, it seems. Can it
be possible that the friends of Nell Darrel have employed this hag to
rob me of my prize? I will not believe it, for it isn't in the nature
of Madge Scarlet to do a good action, not even for pay. No; it is to
gratify her own petty scheme of vengeance that she has stolen a march
on me; but she will not succeed. I will get on her track and wrest the
girl from her hands."

A minute later Professor Ruggles stood before the conductor.

"When does the next train pass going west?"

"It passes Galien in an hour."

"Galien? Do you stop there?"

"Yes."

"Soon?"

"Within five minutes."

When the train slowed in at the station, Professor Ruggles left the
car and entered the depot. Here he would have to wait nearly an hour
before the New York train west would pass. It was a tedious wait; but
he could do no better. With his hand satchel clutched tightly he paced
up and down like a ghost of the night.

He was glad indeed when the train came at length thundering up to the
station, He had purchased a ticket for the station from which the
abductress had boarded the cars and stolen Nell.

With feverish blood the scheming villain sat by the window and watched
the fleeting landscape by the light of the moon. The score of miles
that intervened between the station seemed like a hundred to the
anxious man who sat and glared at the trees and hills without.

He was in extreme doubt as to his ability to cope with the cunning hag
who had ventured so many miles to thwart him, and indulge her own
morbid desire for revenge.

At length the whistle sounded announcing the station.

As the train bolted beside another train, bound in the opposite
direction, Ruggles glanced into the car not ten feet distant, to make
a startling discovery.

He looked squarely into the face of Dyke Darrel, the railroad
detective!

Turning his head, the Professor sat quiet. The other train was moving,
and Ruggles felt paralyzed at his discovery. Perhaps the detective had
not noticed him. He could not understand how the detective had escaped
death from the beating he had received in the basement of that
building of sin on Clark street.

His own train was moving now, and if he would get off he must be quick
about it.

Springing from his seat, he hastened down the aisle.

At the open door he met Dyke Darrel face to face! The recognition was
mutual.

The