All four looked perplexed and disgusted. Patsy Garvan, who was standing at the window, gazing moodily across the harbor, indulged in various expletives in an undertone, and wished he had somebody whose head it would be permissible to punch. “If I don’t get a chance to lick somebody soon,” he muttered, “I’ll get a cramp in my elbow. This case is the kind of thing that makes a man go stale. Gee! To think that a dub like John Garrison Rayne can keep out of our way on an island that you can almost spit across! Jumping cats! I’d rather go out and----” “Patsy!” It was the voice of Nick Carter. Garvan swung around. “What is it, chief? Anything I can do?” “Only stop your growling over there,” answered the detective, good-humoredly. “It’s got on your nerves, I dare say. But so it has on those of the rest of us. Grumbling and complaining never moved even a pebble out of the road yet. Brace up, and let’s talk about it in a sensible way.” Nick Carter was not obliged to mollify his younger assistant in this way. A gruff order would have quieted Patsy Garvan just as effectively. But it was a principle with the eminent detective to make his subordinates feel that they were his partners, rather than just his employees, and he had found that it paid. “We’ve been pretty nearly all over Porto Rico, looking for this fellow,” returned Patsy. “I was thinking we might as well try somewhere else.” “We’ve only looked through San Juan,” corrected Chick. “Even in a city of some fifty thousand people, it is not easy to get into every nook and cranny. Besides, there isn’t any doubt that Rayne has changed his appearance since he left the _Cherokee_.” Nick Carter nodded approvingly. “That is as certain as that he stole that suit case,” he declared. “It is possible that we pass him several times a day without knowing him.” “Oh, chief! Come off!” exclaimed Patsy. “That couldn’t be. I never saw the make-up that would fool you.” “That’s because you don’t know,” rejoined Nick Carter. “Don’t think you or I know it all, Patsy. The men who do things are those who think they may still learn. What you all need now is a little rest.” “That’s so!” yawned Chick. “We are about all in, it seems to me. Still, if there is anything we can do, we ought not to waste time resting.” Nick Carter smiled and slapped Chick on the back, in appreciation of his pluck, as he answered: “Go to bed, Chick. And you, Patsy. It won’t be dark for another hour. But you are so tired that you need not wait for that.” “And what about yourself?” asked Patsy. “Are you going to sit up?” “Indeed I’m not,” was the quick reply. “I’m going to tumble into this bed as soon as you get out.” “There doesn’t seem anything for me to do to-night, either,” remarked Paul Clayton. “But I do not feel as if I ought to sleep until I have got back the Stephen Reed jewelry.” “That may be a matter of days--or weeks--yet, Clayton,” the detective warned him. “You must try to forget it sometimes.”