I piece it out from later letters that from New York they harked out
and harked back, to and from various excursions--quite ordinary ones.
I might, if it were worth while, construct the itinerary; but it
would take a lot of useless labour and yield nothing of importance.
If Farrell, under this careful slackness of pursuit, had made a bolt
for Texas or Alaska, the chronicle just here might be worth reciting.
But he didn't, and it isn't. Buffalo--Long Island--Newport--and, in
one of Jack's letters, Chicago for farthest West--occur in a miz-maze
fashion. It is obvious to me that during these months Farrell, kept
on the run, ran like a hare (and a pretty tame one); that twice or
thrice he headed back for New York, and was headed off.

I passed over each letter, as it came, to Jimmy, It was over some
later letter, pretty much like the one I've just read to you, that
Jimmy, frowning thoughtfully, put the sudden question, "I say, Otty,
are we fond enough of him to start on another wild-goose chase?--to
America this time, and together?"

"Jack's my best friend, of course," I answered after a moment.
"You don't tell me--" and here I broke off, for he was eyeing me
queerly.

"The Professor is, or was, a pretty good friend of mine," said he.
"But you hesitated a moment. Why? . . . Oh, you needn't answer:
I'll tell you. When I asked, 'Are you so fond of him?' for a
moment--just for a flash--you hadn't Jack Foe in your mind, but
Farrell."

"Well, that's true," I owned. "I'm pretty angry with Jack: he's
playing it outside the touch-line, in my opinion. Except that I
detest cruelty, Farrell's nothing to me, of course."

"I wonder," Jimmy mused. "Sometimes, when I'm thinking over this
affair--but let us confine ourselves to the Professor. He's in some
danger, if you think _that_ worth the journey. They shoot pretty
quick in the States, and they don't value human life a bit as we
value it in England: or so I've always heard. If it's true--and it
would be rather interesting to run across and find this out for
oneself--one of these days Farrell will be pushed outside _his_
touch-line--outside the British conventions in which he lives and
moves and has his poor being--and a second later the Professor will
get six pellets of lead pumped into him."

"Oh, as for that," said I, "Jack must look after himself, as he's
well able to. When a man takes to head-hunting, it's no job for his
friends to save him risks."

"Glad