the girl did in that yarn. Finding herself
possessed of a lot of bonds belonging to a stranger, I dare say she is
badly frightened. Put yourself in that girl's place, Deering--imagine her
feelings, landing somewhere after a hurried journey, opening her suitcase
to chalk her nose, and finding herself a thief!"

"Rot!" sniffed Deering angrily.

One moment he distrusted Hood; the next his heart warmed to him. At the
table the light-hearted adventurer had kept him entertained and amused
with his running comment on books, public characters, the world's gold
supply, and scrapes he had been in, without dropping any clew to his
identity. He seemed to be a veritable encyclopaedia of places; apparently
there was not a town in the United States that he hadn't visited, and he
spoke of exclusive clubs and thieves' dens in the same breath. But
Deering's hopes of gaining practical aid in the search for the lost bonds
was rapidly waning.

"There's no use being silly about this; I'm going to telephone to a
detective agency and tell them to send out a good man, right
away--to-night----"

"As you please," Hood assented, "but if you do, you'll regret it to your
last hour. I know the whole breed, and you may count on their making a
mess of it. And consider for a moment that what you propose means putting
a hired bloodhound on the trail of a girl who probably never harmed a
kitten in her life. It would be rotten caddishness to send a policeman
after her. It isn't done, Deering; it isn't done! Of course, there's not
much chance that the sleuths would ever come within a hundred miles of
her, but what if they found her! You are a gentleman, Deering, and that's
not the game for you to play."

"Then tell me a better one! In ten days at the farthest father will be
back and what am I going to say to him--how am I going to explain
breaking into his safety box and stealing those bonds?"

"You can't explain it, of course, and it's rather up to you, son, to put
'em back. Every hour you spend talking about it is wasted time. That
girl's had your suitcase two days, and it's your duty to find her.
Something must have happened or she'd have turned it back to the railroad
company. Perhaps she's been arrested as a thief and thrown into jail!
Again, her few effects point to a degree of prosperity--she's not a girl
who would steal for profit; I'll swear to that. We must find that girl!
We'll toss a slipper and start off the way the toe points."

Indiff