“What’s the matter with you, you young savage?” said Ted.

“Oh, I’m all right now,” said the boy.  “When I woke up I got rattled, I guess, but as long as you’re here it’s all right.”

The food came up now borne by two waiters and piloted by Kit.  There were oysters and steak and potatoes and biscuit and a lot of what Missouri folk call “fixin’s,” and a big pot of coffee.

Scrub’s eyes stood out like doorknobs as he viewed this wonderful array of things to eat.  The table was cleared, the waiters set out the food, and the boys stood back to give Ted and the boy “room to swell,” as Bud expressed it.  The way they tucked into the good things was a caution.

After their hunger was satisfied and the waiters had restored order to the table, Ted began the story of his adventures since he had let Bud out of the automobile.  As he talked, Stella wooed the small boy to her side, and listened to the story with her arm around his shoulder, and long before it was done Scrub was her worshiper forever.

Chief Desmond listened with close attention, and when Ted finished and exhibited the bill of the Green River Bank, which he examined carefully, he said: 

“Mr. Strong, you’ve beaten us all to it.  I will go out to-morrow—­I mean to-day, for it’s one o’clock now—­and view the body myself.  If it is, as seems almost certain to be, Dude Wilcox, one of the most dangerous men in the West is gone, but he has left behind for us to fight, and you to find, the man Checkers.  This bill is your clew to the gang, but it is a counterfeit.  As I have the thing figured out, the gang knew that forty thousand dollars was going to be shipped, but for some reason or other they dared not hold up the train out there, and telegraphed the gang in St. Louis to get it.  Dude was at the head of the bunch here, and as it was a one-man game so near to St. Louis, Dude was elected to pull it off, which he did to the queen’s taste.  Perhaps the bill you have is the only counterfeit in the lot.  Perhaps not.  That is for you to work out.”

“But how he managed to get away with the swag I haven’t managed to figure out yet,” said Ted.

“Of course, I don’t know either, but deducing facts from what I know of the gang’s methods, and from long experience with gentlemen of the road, I would say that the members of the gang who were killed in their rendezvous in Pine Street by my unfortunate men were awaiting the arrival of Dude with the swag.  Checkers had secret knowledge that you had been put on their trail, and when he saw you pick up that red car in East St. Louis he was sure that you knew about the robbery and that you were on to Dude.”

“That’s likely,” said Ted.  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, he got into communication with Dude, and warned him against coming to the Pine Street place.  You see, they had another rendezvous out in the country, a haunted house, the reputation of which would keep prying country boys away from it.”