m, and probing
its possibilities for mischief.

"Yet this fellow. He on the run is--Yes?"

The eyes were smiling as they came back again to Idepski's face. The
agent nodded, flinging his cigarette end into the porcelain cuspidore
beside the desk.

"Which makes me all the more sure of the game," he said confidently.
"He's rattled. He's so scared to death for himself, and for his purpose,
he's getting out. It's as clear as daylight to me. He feels he's plumb
against it if he stops around. He knows we've located him. He knows what
he's done to me. He knows all he wants to know of you. Well, he reckons
there's no sort of chance for him at Sachigo. And if he stops there's no
sort of chance for this purpose of his. He reckons to call off the
hounds on his own trail, while the feller Harker carries on the good
work of squeezing the Swedes. That's how I see it. And I guess I'm
right. Remember I had a year of hell up there to think in, and when I
finally got clear away I had two months' solitary chasing of those woods
to think in, and then, when I made the coast, I had the trip down with
the folks on the boat to listen to. He's scared for his life, and of
anything you hope to hand him. But he's more scared for the purpose that
made him set up that mill at Sachigo."

Hellbeam leant back in his chair. His great paunch protruded invitingly
and he clasped his hands over it.

"Maybe you're right," he said, with an air intended to conciliate.
"Anyway you've picked up some pieces and set them together so they make
a fancy shape. But--it isn't good. No. Here, I think, too. I see
another, way from you. Without this fellow Sachigo is--nothing. See? I
care nothing because of this Harker. No. The other--that's different.
Yes. He the brain has. All this piece you make. He is capable of it. But
he is on the run. Good. I still sleep well while he runs. Sachigo? Bah!
It is nothing without Leslie Martin. Now, go you. Hunt this man. Maybe
your year of the woods will help you," he said, with biting emphasis.
"You know the woods? Well, don't quit his trail. Get him. Get him
alive."

"Oh, I shall get him. Your urging ain't needed. I'll get him as you
say--alive. And he knows it."

Idepski's cold eyes hardened with a frigid hatred as he spoke. He had
only been paid for the work hitherto. Now he was implacable.

"But it's Sachigo I mean to watch," he went on, after a brief pause. "I
mean to play in that direction. It's the home burrow where