Regan came out of the boarding house; and, bare-footed in lieu of gum-shoes, and hugging the shadows a block behind--Noodles had refreshed his memory on the most improved methods--Noodles trailed the master mechanic down the street. Two blocks down, Regan halted on the corner and began to peer around him. Noodles' lips thinned suddenly--it began to look promising already--what was Regan up to? A man came down the cross street, joined Regan, and the two started on again toward the station. A little disappointed, Noodles, still hugging the shadows, resumed the chase--it was only Carleton, the superintendent. From the platform, Noodles watched the two men disappear through the far door of the station. Free from observation now, he hurried along the platform past the station, and was in time to see a lamp lighted upstairs in the side window of the super's office. Noodles waited a moment, then he tiptoed back along the platform, and cautiously pushed open the door through which the others had disappeared. The door of the super's room on the upper story opened on the head of the stairs and, still on tiptoe, Noodles reached the top. Here, on his knees, his eyes glued to the keyhole, he peered into the room--Regan and the super were engaged in their nightly game of cards. There was nothing to raise Noodles' hopes in that, so he descended the stairs and took up his position behind the rain barrel at the corner of the building, where he could watch both the window and the entrance. At half past ten the light went out, Regan and Carleton came down the stairs and headed uptown. Noodles, not forgetting the shadows, trailed them. At the corner where Carleton had joined Regan, Carleton left Regan, and Regan went on two blocks further and disappeared inside his boarding house. Noodles, being a philosopher of a sort, told himself that none of the heroes ever succeeded the first night--and went home. The next night, and the three following night, Noodles shadowed Regan with the same results. By the fifth night, with no single differing detail to enliven this somewhat monotonous and unproductive programme, it had become dispiriting; and though Noodles' thirst for vengeance had not weakened, his faith in the nickel thrillers had. But on the sixth night--at the end of the second week since Noodles and Noodles' father had turned their backs upon the roundhouse--things were a little different. Noodles, in common with every one else in Big Cloud, was quite well aware that the super's private car had been coupled on No. 12 that afternoon, and that Carleton had gone East.