"You may be right; you probably are right," was the father's comment after a thoughtful whiff or two had intervened. "Just the same, I've looked up the dates in my case book: if your Gavitt man, escaping from the officers in St. Louis, had taken the first train for Wahaska, he would have reached here at precisely the same moment that the sick Mr. Griswold did. Also, he would have been careful to remove all the little tags and telltales from his brand-new clothes--which was what Mr. Griswold very evidently had done. Also, again, the amount of money which Mr. Griswold has put into the Raymer capital stock tallies to within ten thousand dollars of the amount your Gavitt fellow walked away with in New Orleans. Also, number three, Mr. Griswold acted very much like a man who had lost all he had in the world when I told him that Miss Grierson and I had found no money in his suit-cases; and----" "That is the weak link in your chain, isn't it?" objected the daughter. "You remember he told me on the boat that he had lost the money?" Again the father took counsel of the long-stemmed pipe. "It might be," he said, after a reflective pause. "It would be, if Miss Grierson could be safely eliminated from the equation. Unhappily, she can't be." "I don't care!" came from the depths of the porch rocking-chair. "If this miserable detective arrests him and appeals to me, I shall simply refuse to know anything about it! I wish you'd tell this man Broffin so when you meet him again." As before, the good little doctor had recourse to his pipe, and it was not until his daughter got up to go in that he said gently: "One other word, Charlie, girl: are you altogether sure that the wish isn't father to the thought--about Griswold?" "Don't be absurd, papa!" she said scornfully, passing swiftly behind his chair to reach the door; and with that answer he was obliged to be content. XXVIII BROKEN LINKS It was on the second day after the pistol-buying incident in Simmons & Kleifurt's that Broffin, wishful for solitude and a chance to think in perspective, took to the woods. In the moment of lost temper, when he had threatened angrily to play an indefinite waiting game, prolonging it until his man should walk into the trap, nothing had really been farther from his intentions. As a matter of fact, there were the best of business reasons why he should not waste another day in following, or attempting to follow, the cold trail. Other cases were pressing, and his daily mail from the New Orleans head-quarters brought urgings impatient and importunate; and on the third day following the sleeveless interview with the doctor's daughter he had paid his bill at the Winnebago House and had packed his grip for the southward flight by the afternoon train.