ou, Chief?" remarked Thad
boldly. "When Owen Dugdale left us he said he was going straight to
you, to tell about meeting Tip on the road smoking a cigarette; and
he showed us that it bore the same trademark as those stolen from
Paul Kramer's place."

Thad went into detail so as to let the tall Chief understand they
already knew all about the discovery, and had been told, in fact,
even before he was.

"Yes, we took a hunt up there in the woods this morning," explained
the other, with a broad smile; "and ran across some tracks that
looked like Tip's. When we followed the trail it led us direct to a
big tree that was hollow; and inside the cavity lay that bundle,
wrapped in a burlap sack. It was almost too easy. An experienced
crook would never have committed such a blunder, and left so plain a
trail. Why, it looked as if we were being taken by the hand and led
there."

"But I guess you didn't carry away the stuff right then, did you,
Chief?" Thad went on to say, a wise look on his face.

"Hardly, son, hardly," replied the other, with a gesture of his
hands. "That would have been too silly for anything. What we did
was to back away, and cover our own footprints as well as we could.
Then we hid to await developments. I left my man up there while I
came back to town to conduct my business. Later in the day I once
more joined him. I expected the boy might be getting hungry for a
smoke about the same time Owen met him on the road. Well, he came,
and we pounced down on him just when he had opened the pack, and was
lighting a weed with his trembling, tobacco-stained fingers; because,
just like Leon Disney, and that slick Nick Lang, Tip is a confirmed
cigarette fiend, you know."

"Well, for one, Nick has cut the habit out, Chief, I happen to know,
for he told me so," Hugh ventured to say.

The big police officer sneered, as though he refused to believe there
could any good come out of the boy who bore that detested name of
Nick Lang. During the whole of the time he occupied his present
exalted position, Chief Wambold had been plagued by the pranks of
Nick and his cronies; and, in spite of all his efforts, up to now he
had been unable to fasten anything serious upon them, although he
gave them credit for every piece of maliciousness practiced in
Scranton during that period.

"Well, perhaps some people may believe Nick didn't have a hand in
this outrage," he went on to say, "but I'll never think otherwise
tha