And an instant later, and as the clock over the _Herald_ office sounded the hour of two, he was following in hot haste the cab containing Patsy, which, in turn, was following the one occupied by the young woman. CHAPTER XX. A FEMALE BOXER. The cabs pursued their way up Broadway until Forty-second Street was reached, when they turned, the leading cab going up that street to Fifth Avenue. As the one containing the young woman turned the corner into that avenue it halted. A young man stepped out from the shadow and entered the cab. Patsy’s cab was at a discreet distance behind it, yet Patsy thought that the young man was the same one with whom, earlier in the evening, on Broadway, he had seen the young woman when she made the change in her hair. The cab now went on up Fifth Avenue, and at a slower pace than it had previously been going. Thus Sixty-eighth Street was reached, and, when near the corner, the cab drew alongside the curbstone, the two occupants alighting and proceeding on foot. Patsy was out in a moment. As the two disappeared around the corner, he ran at full speed; Chick, a little distance behind him, also following rapidly on foot. When Patsy reached the corner the pair were nowhere to be seen. For the moment the young detective was at a loss to know what to do. Thinking that if they had entered any one of the houses it must have been one very close to the avenue, and that, if so, they would have hardly had time to pass through the door, and were under the concealment of a vestibule, he ran down the street hastily in the hopes that he might discover them. Just as Chick reached the corner, two figures leaped out at Patsy. They were the pair he had been following. The young man went at Patsy rather viciously, crying, as he did so: “What are you following us for?” Though the attack was unexpected, Patsy was not unprepared, and, squaring himself, warded off the blow the young man had aimed at him. It was apparent to Patsy in a moment that the young man was no novice at the game of the fists. Indeed, he was an adept in the art of boxing and, for a moment or two, Patsy was kept quite busy in defending himself. In the meantime, the young woman was a silent and inactive witness. After the first few moments of surprise had passed, and, as he thought, he had obtained the measure of the young man, Patsy changed his tactics from defending himself to going at the other one fiercely. He soon demonstrated his superiority, and was fast overcoming the young man, when, to Patsy’s intense astonishment, the young woman danced up at him in approved pugilistic fashion and landed a stinging blow in his face. The young detective was astonished at the force behind the blow. Though he was busy with the young man, he did not fail to observe that the young woman, lady, and daughter of wealth as she seemed to be, was, nevertheless, a good deal of a boxer.