"Such a warm-hearted guy he is!" Nickie said disgustedly. "Yeah, he ain't got no heart," Frost said, with more composure. "But to make it quick, I tell him I'm wise and what's his racket. So we get real chummy and he tells me to drive on and when we do he says it's insurance that he's working." "_Insurance!_" Skippy repeated as if he must never forget the word. "Yeah, he tells me it's a good payin' racket. He says he can get orphans so they don't have no real near folks inquirin' after 'em. He can get 'em insured and wait a month or so, then he can take 'em out in a car, an old closed car he likes to get that don't cost him more'n a few bucks--you know, the kind that's ready for the junk yard. If they can swim he can dope 'em a little with some stuff he's got so by the time they get where he wants, all he has to do is to get out and push the car over to the water." "So that's how he worked it, huh?" Skippy asked, feeling rather sick. "Sure," Frost answered readily. "If they can't swim, he likes it better. Then he uses that stallin' business to get out, leavin' off the brake. He thought he had Tucker sure, but the kid comes to and gets out in time so Devlin thinks he don't give him enough dope." Nickie shuddered visibly. "So he reports it an accident?" "Yeah, and with that funeral face Devlin gets away with it. When the whole business is over he collects the insurance." "Gee whiz!" Skippy murmured. "_It's awful!_" "Yeah, don't think I liked it when he told me!" Frost said, on the defensive. "But he told me I wouldn't have to do no part of that. He said all I had to do was the details like he called it. So what could I do when he had told me all that and asked me to come in on it with him? He'd have put me on the spot for what I knew about him if I didn't. Besides, he said it was goin' to be safe and that he'd worked it out so's we couldn't get caught." "Why didn't you stay in Pittsburgh?" Skippy asked suddenly. "You wanted to, I betcha." "Sure, I did. But he'da found me--if it was years he'd find me so I thought I'd better come back." "You can go back to Pittsburgh tonight if you help us get away. You can start back now--the coupe's out in the barn, ain't it?" "Yeah, but he might..." Frost began. "Tell him you took us out for the air an' we beat it." Nickie was aroused, jubilant at the new turn of events. "Yeah, an' say, Frost, tell him you chased us down in the woods where the bog gets tough, but that we give you the slip there, hah?" "That's the stunt, Mister Frost. And tell him you'll hunt us on one side while he hunts on the other. Then, when he's gone, you beat it fast, 'cause we'll have the cops in here after him by that time. He can't chase you to Pittsburgh when he's in jail, can he?" Frost fell as Skippy afterward termed it, "hook, line and sinker." "Sounds like it's fool-proof, kids," he said. "And the dicks don't know about me, hey?" "How would they?" Skippy assured him.