e none. She's all hunky-dory.
It's those booze birds we're goin' after, you'n'me, see. Chief's
orders, kid. An' oh boy! it's goin' to be some party, believe me!
Let's sit down here an' I'll wag m' jaw."
Phil lighted his pipe; but it went out again as he listened with
breathless interest to McCorquodale's recital. Up to four days ago he
had had a very quiet and uneventful time of it at Sparrow Lake with
nothing happening which seemed to justify his presence there at all.
Then a stranger had put in an appearance and took to watching the
Waring cottage--no less a person than this man Weiler who already had
aroused McCorquodale's suspicion when the detective had worked as a
Brady Agency operative. The German, however, contented himself with
reconnoitring the vicinity between trains and asking a few casual
questions about the Waring household over at the station. He took the
first train back to the city. So did the "Iron Man."
On arrival in the city the detective trailed his man to a cheap little
hotel on a back street, to a rear room on the top floor, where a second
man appeared to be awaiting him. By climbing out a hall window onto
the fire-escape McCorquodale had reached the flat gravelled roof and
wormed himself along into a position where he could hear what
transpired in the room. He had not listened long before he was
satisfied that Weiler had been sent on this spying expedition by the
man in the back bedroom and was reporting the result of his
investigations; in fact, he was drawing a rough map of Sparrow Lake and
marking the location of the Waring cottage when the detective found a
small hole in a skylight and looked cautiously down upon the pair. The
second "gink" was a big flabby-looking "duck," and when he had
descended quietly the detective had no difficulty in finding out that
the man was registered at the hotel as John Harrington.
"Rives!" breathed Phil in suppressed excitement.
McCorquodale nodded. By good fortune President Wade had just returned
to the city and to him the detective at once reported the full
circumstances. The Chief had been greatly interested and after
congratulating McCorquodale on his discretion had despatched him back
to the hotel with instructions to shadow Weiler no matter where the
trail led. It was then that McCorquodale had learned of an expedition
that was being planned by the bootlegging gang the railroad was anxious
to locate, and got concrete evidence that Wei
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