With a push the boy swept by him, pulling on a self-constructed sleigh a still smaller boy, and behind the two swarmed a bunch of yelling youngsters who, as they passed, pelted him with snow.  One of them stopped to tie the string of his shoe, and, looking down, Van Landing saw—­Noodles.

With a swift movement he reached down to grab him, but, thinking it was a cop, the boy was up and gone with a flash and in half a moment was out of sight.  As swiftly as the boy Van Landing ran down the street and turned the corner he had seen the boy turn.  His heart was beating thickly, his breath came unevenly, and the snow was blinding, but there was no thought of stopping.  He bumped into a man coming toward him, and two hats flew in the air and on the pavement, but he went on.  The hat did not matter, only Noodles mattered, and Noodles could no longer be seen.  Down the street, around first one corner and then another, he kept on in fierce pursuit for some moments; then, finding breathing difficult, he paused and leaned against the step railing of a high porch, to better get his bearings.  Disappointment and fury were overmastering him.  It was impossible and absurd to have within one’s grasp what one had been looking for all day and part of two nights, and have it slip away like that.

“Come on.  No use—­that—­” The policeman’s voice was surly.  “If you’ll walk quiet I won’t ring up.  If you don’t you’ll get a free ride.  Come on.”

“Come on?” Van Landing put his hand to his head.  His hat was gone.  He looked down at his feet.  They were soaking wet.  His overcoat was glazed with a coating of fine particles of ice, and his hands were trembling.  He had eaten practically nothing since his lunch of Tuesday, had walked many miles, and slept but a few hours after a night of anxious searching, and suddenly he felt faint and sick.

“Come on?” he repeated.  “Come where?”

“Where you belong.”  The policeman’s grasp was steadying.  “Hurry up.  I can’t wait here all night.”

“Neither can I.”  Van Landing took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.  “I wish you’d get my hat.”  The crowd was pressing closer.  He was losing time and must get away.  Besides, he could not trust himself.  The man’s manner was insolent, and he was afraid he would kick him.  Instead he slipped some money in his hand.

“Mistake, my friend.  You’d have your trouble for nothing if you took me in.  There’s no charge save running.  I want to find a boy who passed me just now.  Name is Noodles.  Know him?”

For a moment the cop hesitated.  The man’s voice, dress, manner, were not the sort seen in this section, and the bill slipped in his hand had a yellow tinge—­still—­

“I’ve dropped my hat.  Get it, will you?” Van Landing threw some change in the still gathering crowd, and as they scampered for it he turned to the policeman, then caught hold of the railing.  A hateful faintness was coming over him again.  On the edge of the crowd a girl with a middle-aged woman had stopped, and the girl was making her way toward him.