"Now is a time when the best of friends must part," said Anglin. "I have been thinking it over, and the suggestion is that you, my young friends, must be relieved of any suspicion of willingly associating with suspicious characters. Gervais, Fred and I have our mission clearly mapped, the cause we serve is supreme, and the safeguarding I propose is of mutual benefit. With you boys here we can have no open acquaintance, and of us, as we are, you must claim no memory. To be brief, you have been detained by rough characters at the other end of town, and you will be there discovered at the roadside in the morning bound and gagged and stripped of all your possessions." "I am afraid we are mighty poor picking," joked Billy, "but it is all right to give us the truss up, as we brought this shake-up to your door." "That is neither here nor there now," consoled Anglin; "we must mend the situation as best we can." And so it came about, at a point remote from the red roof, a passing policeman picked up two much hunted boys who were decidedly the worse for wear. CHAPTER XII. THROUGH FIRE AND FOG. "YOU'RE a pretty pair, I must say." True it was, the boys were not fixed for any dress parade when they first faced Roque, immediately after their delivery to the secret agent by the police authorities. The crawl through the drain pipe and the additional effort to give them the appearance of real victims of violent treatment, had served to convert the usually natty and trim youngsters into a couple of quite disreputable looking characters. It is quite likely that Roque would there and then have put the returned wanderers through the "third degree" of questioning had it not been for a fortunate and welcome interruption in the shape of a messenger, who could not be denied, and who, it proved, brought tidings that wholly changed the line of thought of the stern chief. "Take these chimney-sweeps to the tub and the clothesline," he gruffly ordered, and Schneider, half concealing a broad grin, accepted the service with celerity. "You ought to have heard the boss when he found that you had not reported at quarters last night," said the red-topped aviator, when the trio were out of Roque's hearing. "He took the wind out of my sails, I tell you, and I am not considered slow in the cussing business." "Where were you, anyhow?" "In the hands of brigands, of course," gravely advised Billy, with a wink at Henri. Schneider was so possessed with the prospect of some new and exciting move by Roque, indicated by the manner of the chief upon receipt of the message a few minutes before, that he did not burden the boys by forcing evasive explanations of their mysterious absence. "If Roque had half a suspicion that we had been in company with his pet enemy, the prince of slyboots," confided Henri, when the chums were alone, "our joint name would be Dennis."