Patsy inquired a little later and learned that the ticket was for the same town noticed by Nick when approaching Dugan’s road house that morning, and he immediately bought one for the same place. “There’s nothing to this,” Patsy reasoned, quickly sizing up the circumstance. “He’s going to take the back track. The rascal is going to return and join the gang that did that job last night. He probably wants his bit of the coin. “The chief sized him up correctly, all right, and it still is up to me to stick to the frog-eating miscreant. It will be a cold day, by thunder, if I don’t have a hand in rounding up the whole bunch.” Patsy did not think it necessary to again communicate with Nick by telegram, intending to telephone to him after reaching his destination, but the train did not enter the town until after seven o’clock that morning, and Toulon then kept Patsy on the move. For he started at once on foot for the Ardley place, diverging from the road just before arriving there, and approaching it by a short cut through the woods. Patsy had kept him constantly in view up to that time, avoiding observation with some little difficulty, but he lost sight of him when the rascal suddenly plunged into the woods. “Gee whiz! it won’t do to let him give me the slip at this stage of the game,” he muttered, at once increasing his pace. “I’m dead sure he has not seen me, so he cannot have ducked in there as a ruse, bent upon holding me up. If there is any holding up to be done, by gracious, I’m the gink who is going to do it.” Patsy quickly confirmed his reasoning upon arriving at the point where Toulon had entered the woods. There was no sign of the rascal. Hurrying on in the direction Toulon evidently had taken, however, Patsy soon came in sight of the sign on the top of Ardley’s building, and a moment later in sight of the building itself, just as Toulon turned one corner of it on his way to the door. It was precisely at that time that Margate ended his mocking talk with Nick, and then commanded Ardley to throw the lever that opened that floodgate to the sluice. The unexpected arrival of Toulon caused that murderous design to be temporarily deferred, though by no means discarded, and in the interval that ensued Patsy Garvan was not idle. “By Jove, it was to this fellow that he telephoned,” he said to himself upon again reading the sign. “Ardley must be one of the gang, and Toulon has hiked back here to join them. The entire gang may be in the building, for all I know. “There’s a launch made fast at the river bank, but it don’t belong here, or a float would be provided for it. I’ll make a bid, by gracious, to find out who is in there and what’s doing. I can reach one of those end windows without being seen from the house. Let come what may, by thunder, I’ll have one stealthy look.” Patsy was not slow in acting upon this determination. He sized up with a glance the possibilities of approaching the building without being seen from within.