The hotel-keeper called us at six o’clock. There wasn’t any need for a second call, and we hurried down and had some eggs and salt pork and potatoes and coffee and bread and butter and canned peaches. Just a light breakfast. After we got out in the street we bought some bananas and ate three apiece. After that we felt all right.

“To-day’s the l-l-last of it,” says Mark.

“Somebody’ll win sure before night,” I says.

“It’ll be us,” he says.

That’s what a good breakfast will do for a fellow. It gives him confidence.

We started off for the hotel where Jiggins & Co. were and sat down on the porch where we could look into the office and see them the minnit they came down-stairs. We waited and waited. After a while the clock struck seven.

“They’re due now,” I says.

But they didn’t come. At half past seven I began to get fidgety and so did Mark.

“Don’t seem l-l-like they’d oversleep to-day,” says he.

“It don’t,” says I.

“Let’s investigate,” says he.

We marched in to the man behind the counter and asked for Mr. Jiggins.

“Fat man?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“He and his friend got up early,” says the man. “They left a call for seven, but they were down here at six. Had breakfast and went out.”

Now, that was a nice thing to start the day with, wasn’t it? We thought we had the advantage of them. It was all plain as pie to us how we could stick to their heels till they found Uncle Hieronymous and then bust in on them and knock their scheme a-kiting. Now the shoe was pinching the other foot, and it pinched hard.

We turned away without so much as saying thank you to the man. Somehow there didn’t seem to be much to thank him for. It would have been too much like saying much obliged to a cow that hooked you. Out on the porch we flopped down in a couple of chairs and looked at each other.

“Looks like we was done for,” I says.

Mark Tidd never will admit he’s beaten. It made him mad to hear me say so.

“I’ll sh-sh-show you if we’re b-b-beat,” he says, stuttering so bad he almost choked. “We hain’t beat, and we hain’t goin’ to be b-b-beat.”

“All right,” says I, “that suits me fine. How do we manage it?”

“Sittin’ here won’t do it,” says he, and got onto his feet. “Come on.”

There wasn’t a thing to do but try to find uncle ourselves. If we got to him before Jiggins & Co. all right. If they found him first the bacon was burned, and there we were. Nice, wasn’t it? It made me sick to think of all the work we’d done and all the trouble we’d taken, and then to have the whole thing depend on luck at the end. We were discouraged, but we didn’t let up. We said we’d keep up the battle till the cows came home, and we did.

I never saw a man so hard to find as Uncle Hieronymous was. We met men who had seen him, and we went into places where he’d been, but nobody knew where he’d gone or if he’d be back. This kept up till after ten o’clock.

“If he’s h-h-hard for us to find,” says Mark, “he must be hard for them to f-f-find.”

There wasn’t a great deal of comfort in that, but we took all we could get.

I saw by a jewelry-store clock it was a quarter to eleven, and just then a man spoke to Mark Tidd.

“Be you the kid that was askin’ after Hieronymous Bell last night?”

“Yes,” says Mark.

“I seen him,” says the man; and then I recognized his voice. He was the lumberman that was talking with Jiggins & Co. the night before. “I seen him,” says he, “with them two fellers, the fat one and the lean one. And there was another feller, too. Feller by the name of Siggins, lawyer. Not one of those here big lawyers that git to be judges, but a leetle one that goes slinkin’ around corners. I calc’late he hain’t no fit companion for Hieronymous.”

“Where’d they g-g-go?” Mark asked, quick.

“Looked like they was headin’ for Siggins’s office.”

“Where’s that?”

The lumberman pointed to a yellow-brick building about a block back. “There,” says he. “Up the stairs in a back room.”

“M-much obliged,” says Mark; and off we went hot-foot.

It was a case of hurry now, and hurry hard. Uncle Hieronymous was in the hands of the enemy, and his mine would be a goner if we didn’t get our heavy artillery to work in a jiffy. But we had a chance, and a good one.

We ran. I beat Mark to the top of the stairs, but he was puffing right at my heels. How he did puff! The stairs came up in a hallway that ran straight ahead to the back of the building and an outside door. Another hall ran crossways from one end of the building to the other.

“Now, where’s Siggins’s o-o-office?” says Mark.

He got an answer, too. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Collins stepped out of the door of the last office at the back of the building, the one on the left side of the hall. He saw us that very instant, and the way he came for us would have made a Comanche Indian proud. He swooped. I hadn’t any idea he could move so fast. Before we could open our mouths he............