t least
for her. When I can join you in your work, and your waiting, I shall,
I am sure, feel more hopeful, and I trust less impatient of delay.'

CHAPTER XXVI.

A COLUMBIAN GUARD.

It was still our theory--Dave's and mine--that, granted our original
quarry was still in the White City, we must sooner or later encounter
it, if we continued to traverse the thickly populated enclosure long
enough, and with an eye single to our search.

We believed as firmly, yes, more firmly than at first, that Delbras
and his band were still, much of the time, in Midway; and after long
watching we had grown to believe that they had somewhere upon Stony
Island Avenue a retreat where all could find shelter and safety in
time of need.

'But one thing's certain,' quoth Dave, when we were discussing the
matter, 'wherever the place is, they can approach it from more
directions and more entrances than one. They, some of them, have been
seen to enter saloons, to go upstairs, around corners, and into
basements, and are never seen to come out I can only account for it in
one way.'

'And what is that?' I questioned.

'They enter always at the side or rear, and never at the front, and
they only do this when they know, by signal, that the way is clear.'

'If that is true,' I said, 'we shall find them sooner or later.'

One of the characters assumed by me when going about the grounds in my
capacity of a detective was that of a Columbian Guard. I had a natty
blue uniform, in which, when donned with the addition of a brown curly
wig, and a luxuriant moustache just light enough to be called blond, I
became a really distinguished guard. And more than once, when thus
attired, I have watched the conscious faces and overburdened shoulders
and heads of the multitudes of uniformed martyrs who, on these
oft-recurring dedication days, State and national, not to mention
receptions to the great--native and foreign--tramped in sun, mud, or
rain, arrayed in all the rainbow hues, beplumed, gilded, and
uncomfortable, and have thanked the good sense and good taste that
evolved for the manly good-looking 'C. G.' a uniform at once tasteful,
soldierly, and subdued, in which one might walk abroad and not feel
shamefacedly aware that he was too brilliantly picturesque for
comfort.

In this array I had more than once passed my acquaintances of the
bureau and the hospital, Miss Jenrys and her aunt, and even Lossing,
until one day it occurred to me that I