so they've got off."

"Was they runnin' away from somebody?"

Just for an instant Jet was on the point of telling this brother
messenger the whole story, but he checked himself in time and replied:

"I should think they'd want to after playin' such a trick on me. Say,
how am I goin' back to New York?"

"I dunno 'less you walk; I don't reckon you wanter stow away on the
boat?"

"You bet I don't."

At this moment the Albany messenger remembered that he had been sent on
an important errand, and said as he turned to go:

"I'll be through work at six o'clock. Come around by the office an'
we'll have another talk."

Food, not conversation, was what Jet most wanted just then, and as his
new acquaintance departed in great haste he walked aimlessly along the
streets wondering what could be done.

"The inspector thinks by this time that I lied to him, and---- By
gracious, why can't I follow those fellows? That's jest what he told
me to do!"

This seemed like a lucky thought, and without realizing that he had no
means to prosecute even the shortest search, Jet went rapidly toward
the depot.

CHAPTER IV

AN ENGAGEMENT

It was necessary for Jet to inquire the way to the depot spoken of by
his new acquaintance, and after arriving there his helplessness seemed
more apparent than before.

Passengers coming and going paid no attention to the boy, save to push
him out of their road, and he was even more alone in the hurrying
throng than he had been on the street.

After wandering to and fro, trying to screw up courage enough to ask
the conductor for a free ride, and failing in the effort because none
of the train hands would give him an opportunity to speak with them, he
sat down on a truck and mechanically plunged his hands in his pockets.

The paper purchased on the evening previous was the only thing which
met his touch.

"I might as well find out about this murder," he said to himself, as he
unfolded the printed sheet. "When a feller is readin' he kinder
forgets how hungry he is, I reckon."

To give the printed account in all its details would require too much
space, since there were no less than five columns in Jet's paper.

The substance was to the effect that a well-known merchant, residing on
East Twentieth Street, had been found on the floor of his library the
previous morning, his skull crushed in as if with some heavy instrument
like a crow-bar, or a burglar's jimmy, and the safe, which wa