"Oh!" groaned Colonel Westlake, in a conversation with the Courier's managing editor one evening, "if only we could nail 'em somewhere! But there was never a time when everything was locked up as it is now. You can't get anything. We've whaled all the chaff out of the old straw, but it doesn't do any good. It's a different proposition from what it looked to be in the first place, isn't it? I'm convinced, though, that if we could only dig up what's beneath the surface on this deal, we'd win out yet, late as it is. It's a forlorn hope, but everybody must keep his eyes open, that's all. I'll tell you one thing, the man that happened to turn the trick would have no occasion to regret it, and don't you forget it!" Unknown to the Colonel, as it was unknown also to the managing editor and to Harkins, the man who was to turn the trick was steadily forging ahead in the process. Micky, however, had kept his own counsel. This was not a matter to be bawled from the house-tops, or even whispered in secret, until the moment came in which he might confidently warn his superiors to prepare to exploit the story. The task was one to be prosecuted with infinite caution, and he was pursuing it alone. It would be time to speak of it when he had it so flanked by facts, and fortified by proof, that the town should read it aghast and rally at the eleventh hour to save itself. Meanwhile O'Byrn was not idle. He had already satisfied himself, by actual proof, of the value of Slade's tips. The time spent by that worthy in subterranean research had evidently been well expended. There was, clinched and ready for publication, much that was startling. The information had been gained, moreover, from various sources involving difficulties in handling, yet Micky had proceeded thus far without causing a ripple of uneasiness in the turbid waters, and the knaves whose undoing he sought were in blissful ignorance of the formidable net that was closing about them. The layman will wonder how this could be, but the trained newspaper man will readily understand how a "star" worker like O'Byrn, gifted with far more than ordinary subtlety, could accomplish a result which a good reporter, in less degree perhaps, has frequently to negotiate in his arduous calling.