car until he was through
with it, Ted took his leave, and returned to the hotel.

There he found Bud pacing the floor.

"Peevish porcupines," grunted the old cow-puncher, "but you've got
yourself in up to ther neck in printer's ink."

"How's that?" asked Ted.

"Haven't you seen the evening papers?"

"I've been too busy to look at them."

"I reckon you be. Busier than a cranberry merchant. Look at this."

Bud handed Ted a bundle of evening papers.

Of course, the fight between the detectives and the bandits was given an
immense amount of space in the extras which followed one another rapidly
from the presses. In all of them were accounts of Ted's going to the
rescue of the detectives, and the statement that balls from Ted's
revolver had killed two of the gang.

"Rubbish!" said Ted. "I didn't kill any bandits. I took a couple of
shots at them after they had fired on me, that's all."

"Well, yer won't be able to get away from these newspaper stories. If
any of ther gang run across yer, they'll shore go after yer with a hard
plank. Ye've placed ther black mark on yerself with ther gang."

"All right. I can stand it if they can. I've got a few up my sleeve for
them."

Then Ted related exactly how the thing happened, and of his talk with
Desmond.

"And they let that fellow Checkers get away," sighed Ted. "The chief
says he's the most dangerous of them all, and warned me to look out for
him. Bud, I've got a hunch."

"Let her flicker. I'm kinder stuck on yer hunches; they pay dividends
right erlong."

"The fellow in the check suit was the man who tried to stab me because I
wouldn't let him see the anonymous letter. I don't know which was the
real man, Checkers or the other. But there were many points of
similarity between them, and when Checkers called for us to stop the
automobile, it was the voice of the man who commanded me to give him the
letter. Keep Checkers in your mind."

The next morning they went out to Don Dorrington's house and got out the
automobile.

"We'll circulate around pretty well in this," said Ted, "and if
Checkers is in town he'll spot us, and we may get a chance at him yet."

"What do you want with him?"

"I'm depending on him to lead us to headquarters."

For an hour or more they rode about the town, making the machine as
conspicuous as possible.

"Bud, we're being followed," said Ted, nodding toward a yellow car that
had been in evidence oftener than mere chance made possible