“Again you were in luck,” he went on, “for the next day after the coat was called for by your friend, a Cadiz sheriff was at the hotel inquiring for an overcoat with a peculiar-shaped tear in the skirt.” “It certainly looks as if the trail were getting hot,” said I, not a little worried. “Where is this sheriff?” “I don’t know, but Radford has an appointment with him this afternoon.” “Has he asked you to find me?” “Not in so many words, but he said we ought to know if there was a crook in town answering the description given by Utley.” “And what did you tell him?” “That there wasn’t a man in this city answering such a description, but that I recognized in Utley’s man a well-known Western crook.” McCord said he would go with Radford to see the Cadiz sheriff about four o’clock in the afternoon, and that the trio were to hunt up Utley’s trunk. When that was accomplished the sheriff would be gotten out of town not later than the same evening. I was to meet McCord at the Metropolitan the following morning to learn the result. I was there, and to say that I wasn’t worried would be far from the truth. “Well, it worked like a windmill,” laughed McCord. “Where we blew he went. By the last gust of wind we gave him he was wafted to the depot in Jersey, and must be pretty near to Ohio by this time.” I didn’t doubt McCord’s word, though I had no further proof, consequently I felt much weight lifted from my mind. When he, having in mind the protection money that I’d paid him, said, “You now can see what our services to you people are,” I agreed with him and that an emergency of this kind fully attested to the accuracy of his statement. “And now,” said McCord, “when Eddie Hughes comes to town, you’d better advise him to see us.” “Very well,” I promised, “since you have learned he was my companion, why, I’ll send him to you if he shows up.” But Eddie didn’t return to New York for two years. In the meantime I heard how he escaped the day we were surprised on the hillside. He had in a most fortunate way run across a small hollow in a thicket where the dried leaves had piled up as though they had been waiting there for the purpose they served. Getting into this refuge, surrounded by the underbrush, Hughes covered himself with leaves and lay there for hours. The searching party actually tramped over him while beating through the thicket, but passed him by. Under the cover of darkness he stole away with his treasure. When he finally appeared in New York the Cadiz Bank robbery and his connection with it had become swallowed up in the swirl of more stirring events, the affairs of the grafting police and civilians having reached a most prosperous period. CHAPTER VIII SHERIFF SMITH’S BRIBE--THE LITTLE JOKER