hanic had been trying to rob--he could see Regan walking the
plank of a pirate ship, while the pirates cheered hoarsely--and he
fairly revelled in every one of them--until cold despair would clutch
again at his raging heart. They were peaches all right, but somehow
they wouldn't fit into Big Cloud--he couldn't figure out how to get
Regan to rob a bank vault, and there weren't any pirates in the
immediate vicinity that he had ever heard of.

Then inspiration came to Noodles one night--and he sat bolt upright in
bed. He would _shadow_ Regan! A fierce, unhallowed joy took hold of
Noodles. Noodles had grasped the constructive technique of the
thriller! Every hero in every nickel thriller shadowed every villain
to his doom. Regan's doom at the end was sure to take care of itself
once he had found Regan out--but the shadowing came first.

Noodles slept feverishly for the rest of the night, and the following
evening he snooped down Main Street and took up his position in a
doorway on the opposite side of the street from Regan's boarding house.
In just what dire deed of criminal rascality he expected to trap the
master mechanic he did not know, but that Regan was capable of
anything, and that he would catch him in something, Noodles now had no
doubt--that was what the shadowing was for--he grimly determined that
he would be unmoved by appeals for mercy--and his heart beat high with
optimistic excitement.

Regan came out of the boarding house; and, bare-footed in lieu of
gum-shoes, and hugging the shadows a block behind--Noodles had
refreshed his memory on the most improved methods--Noodles trailed the
master mechanic down the street. Two blocks down, Regan halted on the
corner and began to peer around him. Noodles' lips thinned
suddenly--it began to look promising already--what was Regan up to? A
man came down the cross street, joined Regan, and the two started on
again toward the station. A little disappointed, Noodles, still
hugging the shadows, resumed the chase--it was only Carleton, the
superintendent.

From the platform, Noodles watched the two men disappear through the
far door of the station. Free from observation now, he hurried along
the platform past the station, and was in time to see a lamp lighted
upstairs in the side window of the super's office. Noodles waited a
moment, then he tiptoed back along the platform, and cautiously pushed
open the door through which the others had disappeared. The door