Then he ran to the car and Nickie gave him an anxious look. "Sorry I hadda keep you waitin', mister," he said naïvely, "but that lady was old an' she couldn't stoop so well so I ..." "Come on, get in!" was Devlin's response. Skippy looked back and saw that the old lady stood holding her pocketbook tightly, watching them as they drove away. Then she went up the walk to the doctor's house. After they had gone a few feet, Devlin backed the car around and went back the way they had come. As they drove down the brightly lighted street of the little community, they came abreast of a car which as Skippy had already noticed bore a New York license plate. Even while he looked, a face at one of the opened windows drew his attention, a brisk face so pleasantly familiar. Dick Hallam! He tried to stifle his cry of surprise, but Devlin had not missed it. "You know the man in that car?" He had already stepped on the gas and they were plunging forward with terrific speed. "You know him?" he asked, insistently, threateningly. "Y--yes." Skippy saw the headlights looming up from the rear. Dick Hallam was giving chase. He had seen him! Devlin, on the other hand, was not dismayed. He was using all the speed of which the car was capable and had turned off all except his parking lights. Suddenly he swerved into a narrow road and after that they made so many turns that Skippy lost all sense of direction. When Devlin slowed down he coughed with satisfaction. "I'm glad to see that neither of you tried to pull a fast one. I had made up my mind that I'd wreck the car if you did--I'm that way, boys." "Yeah, we can see that," Nickie said, with no conscious attempt to be humorous. "You needn't a' worried bout me, Devlin--I wouldn't a' laid a hand on you. The shave was close enough the way this car was goin'." Skippy had barely heard anything that was said. He could think only that Dick Hallam had been near enough to touch not a half hour back, and now the night, and perhaps Death itself, separated them. Certainly, it was too much to hope that Hallam should find them now or ever! The doctor had said that no one knew of Devil's Bog. Why hadn't he known the name of the place before? Neither Carlton Conne nor his men would ever find the place from his poor description of it. And yet, he thought, did not the desolate swampland stand out from all other swamplands? Somehow, it did. And Dean Devlin, known or unknown, made it stand out still more. CHAPTER XXVI GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY They talked it all over before they went to sleep that night and concluded that one bright star of hope burned brightly in their favor. Everything indicated that Devlin meant to get them both off his hands at once. Nickie observed that perhaps Frost had put the idea in his head and, if so, they had much for which to thank him.