Gordon shook his head. “I’d like to have a look at them myself,” he answered, “but we’d better wait for a while and give the woman a chance to quiet down. She may be peering out of those back windows for all she’s worth at this very moment, you know. What you said was enough to arouse any woman’s curiosity, and she’s probably imagining all sorts of things. I don’t believe she’s in touch with her husband, and even if she were, it’s unlikely that she could get word to him. Still, you never know what a panicky woman is going to do. She has no man to fall back upon now, remember, and if she saw us lurking about, she might call up the police.” “Well, what if she did?” demanded Cray. “We haven’t anything to be afraid of at their hands.” Having once been a police detective himself, he often found it hard to sympathize with his companion’s attitude, which was that of most private detectives. “That’s a foolish question, Jack,” Green Eye returned, copying one of Nick Carter’s gentle rebukes. “We’re not down in the city now, remember. We’ll be up against some country officers, who might yank us off to the lockup before we had a chance to explain. While we were gone, what if Simpson should appear on the scene? Where would our plans be then?” “That’s right, too,” Cray agreed ruefully. “Might get away and not turn up again. Take it all back, Mr. Carter. We can wait for a while—long enough for Mrs. Simpson to get tired if she’s on the watch—and still have time to look about a bit, with the help of our flash lights, before midnight. Not much chance that Simpy will show up before then.” Accordingly, they concealed themselves near by and waited impatiently until nearly eleven-thirty, by which time all the houses in the neighborhood were dark. “Now we’ll do a little exploring,” announced Green Eye. They cautiously skirted Simpson’s property until they reached a point from which they could see that the rear windows were all closed, after which they continued to the rear of the lot. They remained outside the low fence until they had satisfied themselves that Simpson was not in the vicinity. Having ascertained that, they crept about the corner of the fence, and, lurking in its shadow, approached the wide gate which the fugitive had had cut there. Cray switched on his flash light, and turned it downward so that it shone upon the footprint he had noted earlier in the day. “That’s Simpson’s, I’m pretty sure,” he declared. “Got the data of it, anyway. The fellow stood here to open the gate.” “Show me the tire marks first,” Gordon said. He was trying to simulate Nick’s thoroughness, but he had a more personal reason as well. He wished to see if the tracks would tell him the same story they had told his companion, because if they did not—well, the stolen gold might prove to be much more elusive than he had hoped, and the sooner he found it out the better.