t no tunnel!"

"No? what is it then? It's a pretty good imitation. Looks like an
underground river that has gone dry."

"Why, this is the subway."

"The subway?"

"Sure. It goes right under the streets, all the way along New York."

Then Roy understood. Mortimer De Royster had told him something of
this underground railroad, through the heart of New York, but thinking
of other things had put it out of Roy's mind. A little later he
alighted and walked to his hotel.

Meanwhile Caleb Annister and Mr. Baker had been plotting together.
They discussed many schemes, and at last hit on one they thought would
answer.

"I think we'll let Tupper do the trick," said Baker. "Young Bradner
saw less of him than he did of the rest of us, and if Tupper shaves off
his moustache, and changes his voice a bit, as he can do, the boy will
never recognize him," for Baker had told Mr. Annister of the encounter
of himself and his cronies with the boy from the ranch.

"Anything so as to get him away for two weeks," said the agent. "Don't
tell him too much about it, and then--if anything happens, you
understand--I can't be called to testify."

"Oh, nothing will happen, in the way you mean. We'll be careful. Now
where is he stopping?"

Mr. Annister mentioned the name of the hotel, which Roy had written on
the card he had left with the agent.

"All right. I'll see Tupper, and have him fix up to do the job. It
ought to be easy. You'll have the money, I suppose?"

"As soon as he is out of the way--safely--you get the thousand dollars."

There was some more talk, and the two plotters separated.

It was three days after this, during which time Roy had enjoyed himself
going about New York alone, (for he had not seen De Royster) that, as
he was sitting in the hotel lobby one afternoon, a well-dressed man
approached him.

"Aren't you from out Painted Stone way, in Colorado?" asked the man
pleasantly.

"That's where I'm from, the Triple O ranch," replied Roy, who was frank
by nature, and unsuspicious. He wondered who the man could be, and how
he knew where he was from in the west.

"I thought so," went on the stranger. "I was out on a ranch near there
about a week ago and I happened to be at the railroad station when you
got aboard."

"What ranch were you on?" asked Roy, for he knew them all within a
radius of a hundred miles of his father's.

"Why, it was--er--let's see--seems to me it was the Double X."

"There's n