He was, one fine morning, walking about the city, and came upon a suspicious looking man, who, the detective thought, was throwing himself more frequently than absolutely necessary in the presence of Mr. Gowen, and determined to see who he was and what disposition he made of himself. Informing Linden of this intention, he started. The person under surveillance first entered Dormer’s Sheridan House, remained there a short time and, coming out, went to Hughes’ drinking place, in Center Street. In this way he consumed the time until ten o’clock at night, McKenna keeping continually on his trail, but entirely unseen and unsuspected by the visitor. This constituted some twelve hours of continuous shadowing, and the operative had discovered nothing, except that his man consumed a large quantity of liquor and walked very fast, occasionally talking a short time with leading Mollies. He was well tired of the business, but determined to see where the party made his headquarters before he left him. It was surprising how many people that comparative stranger knew in Pottsville, and equally miraculous how fast he flew over the uneven ground, climbing the hills like a native, and never stumbling or falling, even after imbibing whisky enough to kill an ox. McKenna, meanwhile, had been unable to secure anything to appease either hunger or thirst and was nearly prostrated. Finally the man traveled, at a late hour, on a hurried walk, up Mahantongo Street, and, after a long and toilsome pilgrimage, which the operative thought would never end, paused before a small house in an eastern suburb of the city, looked cautiously about, to see that nobody observed him, and then, leaping the garden fence, entered the rear door of the premises. A light still burned in the kitchen, and the detective, assuring himself by actual observation that his party did not live in the dwelling, but was courting the cook in the back apartment, secreted himself in the shadow of a large tree, on the opposite side of the street, and awaited results. The stranger stopped more than an hour. McKenna, his patience and strength quite spent, still persevered in maintaining his watch. Presently he heard unsteady footsteps approaching, and, fearing discovery, the operative sat down on the sidewalk, took off his boot, and pretended to be very busily engaged in extracting some apocryphal sand and gravel which had worked into it through an indefinite hole in the upper-leather. To the surprise of McKenna, he was accosted by a thick, lubberly, short-set city policeman, evidently a German. Seeing the _pseudo_ Mollie, he rolled along toward his resting-place, and, in a decidedly thick and drunken tone, demanded: “What for you lofe about here, eh?” McKenna examined his boot more attentively, and answered respectfully: “Begorra! Me boot hurts me foot! Sure, an’ I am gittin’ some gravel stones out of it, when I mane to start for home!”