“He was out of sight before I got my feet,” said I. “They must have a hiding-place close by.” “He must have jumped the fence here,” said Wilson, pointing to a cottage just beyond the hotel's back yard. “I'll see about it.” And he vaulted the pickets and looked about the place. He was back in a minute with a shake of the head. “Well, it's no great matter,” I said. “We can get along without another guest for the afternoon. Now get under cover, boys, or you'll be soaked through.” The landlord met us with an air half-anxious, half-angry. “I'd like to know who's to pay for this!” he cried. “There's a sash and four panes of glass gone to smithereens.” “The gentleman who just went out will be glad to pay for it, if you'll call it to his attention,” I said blandly. “I'll have the law on him!” shouted the landlord, getting red in the face. “And if he's a friend of yours you'd better settle for him, or it will be the worse for him.” “I'm afraid he isn't a friend of mine,” I said dubiously. “He didn't appear to take that view of it.” “That's so,” admitted the landlord. “But I don't know his name, and somebody's got to settle for that glass.” I obliged the landlord with Mr. Meeker's name, and with the bestowal of this poor satisfaction returned to the interrupted meal. “Well, I reckon he wouldn't have been very pleasant company if you'd got him,” said one of the men consolingly, when we had told our tale of the search for a guest. “I suspect he would be less disagreeable in here than out with his gang,” I returned dryly, and turned the subject. I did not care to discuss my plan to get a hostage now that it had failed. The gray day plashed slowly toward nightfall. The rain fell by fits and starts, now with a sudden dash, now gently as though it were only of half a mind to fall at all. But the wind blew strong, and the clouds that drove up from the far south were dark enough to have borne threats of a coming deluge. As the time wore on I suspected that my men grew uneasy, wondering what we were there for, and why I did not make some move. Then I reflected that this could not be. It was I who was wondering. The men were accustomed to let me do their thinking for them, and could be troubled no more here than in San Francisco. But what was I expected to do? Where could my orders be? Had they gone astray? Had the plans of the Unknown come to disaster through the difficulty of getting the telegraph on Sunday? The office here was closed. The Unknown, being a woman, I ungallantly reflected, would have neglected to take so small a circumstance into consideration, and she might even now be besieging the telegraph office in San Francisco in a vain effort to get word to Livermore.