“How do you know he wasn’t a newspaper man?”

“I’ll tell you. He got out at Hobson’s Patch, and so did I. I chanced into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.

“‘See here,’ said the operator after he’d gone out, ‘I guess we should charge double rates for this.’—‘I guess you should,’ said I. He had filled the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for all we could make of it. ‘He fires a sheet of this off every day,’ said the clerk. ‘Yes,’ said I; ‘it’s special news for his paper, and he’s scared that the others should tap it.’ That was what the operator thought and what I thought at the time; but I think differently now.”

“By Gar! I believe you are right,” said McGinty. “But what do you allow that we should do about it?”

“Why not go right down now and fix him?” someone suggested.

“Ay, the sooner the better.”

“I’d start this next minute if I knew where we could find him,” said McMurdo. “He’s in Hobson’s Patch; but I don’t know the house. I’ve got a plan, though, if you’ll only take my advice.”

“Well, what is it?”

“I’ll go to the Patch to-morrow morning. I’ll find him through the operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I’ll tell him that I’m a Freeman myself. I’ll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for a price. You bet he’ll tumble to it. I’ll tell him the papers are at my house, and that it’s as much as my life would be worth to let him come while folk were about. He’ll see that that’s horse sense. Let him come at ten o’clock at night, and he shall see everything. That will fetch him sure.”

“Well?”

“You can plan the rest for yourselves. Widow MacNamara’s is a lonely house. She’s as true as steel and as deaf as a post. There’s only Scanlan and me in the house. If I get his promise—and I’ll let you know if I do—I’d have the whole seven of you come to me by nine o’clock. We’ll get him in. If ever he gets out alive—well, he can talk of Birdy Edwards’s luck for the rest of his days!”

“There’s going to be a vacancy at Pinkerton’s or I’m mistaken. Leave it at that, McMurdo. At nine to-morrow we’ll be with you. You once get the door shut behind him, and you can leave the rest with us.”