“Chick tied that cloth on the axle in a chance that we might run up against it during the night.” “No doubt of that,” said Patsy. “Where now?” “To Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue,” replied Nick. “Chick has been on the track of these people, whoever they are, and it’s dollars to cents that when they left their coach at Twenty-third Street, he left his, in pursuit.” Nick and Patsy hurried to the point indicated, and, as Nick had foreseen, they found on the corner one of the red chalk marks that gave them the direction. The signs were fresh, easily seen, showing that they had been made within a recent time. The signs led them over a crooked way, in which there were many stops, nearly all being in front of liquor stores, but finally ended in Avenue A, on the block below that on which Patsy had twice been in the twenty-four hours previously. Here the signs ended, nor were there any indications of anything but a stop. “Surely,” said Nick, “after giving us such a good trail for so many hours, Chick can’t have thrown it up at a late hour.” “Unless,” said Patsy, “something has happened to him.” He suddenly darted forward, and bent down to look on the sidewalk near the curb. He picked something up and looked at it, and then ran along a few steps, looking in the curb or gutter. Nick followed after him, and when he reached him, Patsy said: “Here’s the trail. Little pieces of this yellow cloth. Chick was on the sneak here, and not in the open.” Hurriedly, they followed this new trail, and it led them to the middle of the block on which was the house in which Patsy had his “row,” as he called it. Indeed, when they came to a stop, they were almost opposite the door of that house. Here, carefully placed against the bottom of a lamppost, was a ball of yellow cloth, about the size of a baseball. “The end of the trail,” said Patsy. “And Chick is somewhere about,” added Nick. “I’ll give a signal that Chick will know if he’s here,” said Patsy. “Hide yourself.” Nick went into a neighboring doorway, and Patsy, slipping into the street, got between two covered wagons that stood there, backed up to the curb, without horses in front of them. Suddenly there sounded on the air the sharp, yelping bark of a frightened dog, ending in a prolonged howl. Patsy slipped back to the pavement and to the cover of some boxes that were piled nearby. The two waited but a moment, when Chick came down the street, looking in every direction. Nick gave a low signal, and Chick darted into the hallway where Nick was, Patsy quickly joining him. CHAPTER XIII. A DESPERATE STRUGGLE. “I have been following Lannigan and the unknown all night,” said Chick. “What have they been doing?” asked Nick. “Something that they have regarded as important, but what I am not certain.”