“No, he didn’t; for he knows that when I found him gagged, and tied to a post, I let him loose; and he knew that I had knocked over these two robbers without any help from him. He knew I was not one of the thieves; and he would not have fired at me if he had known I was one of the thieves.” “You knocked the robbers over!” exclaimed the officer of the police, with something like a laugh, in which his companions joined. “That’s my remembrance of the matter,” added Wade. “Do you mean to say that you, a mere boy, knocked over these two men, one of whom is an accomplished cracksman, and bound them as we find them?” demanded the officer, with an incredulous chuckle. “That’s just what I mean to say,” replied Wade stoutly. “Won’t you tell how it was done?” laughed the police-officer. “We have had some experience with the thieves of New York.” “So have I,” added Wade, as he led the way to the back-door. He turned the key, and threw back the bolts. Opening the door, he related the story as it has already been told. The police were satisfied that the feat was possible in the way it was described. The officer then examined the broken heads of the discomfited robbers, and found plain marks of the heels of the boy’s shoes on both of them. The “one from the country” recited all the details of the affair with the utmost minuteness. Mr. Maynard and the officer questioned him very closely; and they had no alternative but to believe him, because all the circumstances confirmed what he said. Wade pointed to the box of tools on the floor of the store. “Those are kept down stairs, and no one is allowed to leave them in the upper store,” said the owner. “Were those used in opening the door?” “Not at all, sir: Steeples opened the door for the robbers. I found the key of the door on the floor; but they could not have got the door open if those two big bolts had not been shoved back for them,” continued Wade. “That box of tools was brought up here to fix the door, and make it look as if it had been cut away. Then Steeples let them gag and bind him, and he groaned like a sick man, so as to make himself appear all right; and he was to get a share of the swag, as that fellow calls it.” “My partners have said lately that Steeples was living too fast for his means,” said Mr. Maynard, musing. “The boy has the right of it: the robbery could have been carried out on no other plan,” added one of the officers. Not a little to the astonishment of Wade Brooks, he found he was not to be accused as one of the robbers. But it was _not_ “just his luck.” CHAPTER XL. GATHERING UP THE SWINDLERS.