“Oh, hang it, that’s too bad.”

“Not so very bad, either.”

“Why?”

“Because he came down to Baltimore in the very train I was in, though I didn’t know it in time.  As we moved out of the station I saw him going toward the iron gate with a satchel in his hand.”

“Good; we’ll catch him.  Let’s lay a plan.”

“Send description to the Baltimore police?”

“Why, what are you talking about?  No.  Do you want them to get the reward?”

“What shall we do, then?”

The Colonel reflected.

“I’ll tell you.  Put a personal in the Baltimore Sun.  Word it like this: 

     “A.  Drop me A line, Pete.”

“Hold on.  Which arm has he lost?”

“The right.”

“Good.  Now then—­

“A.  Drop me A line, Pete, even if you have to write with your left hand. 
Address X. Y. Z., General Postoffice, Washington.  From you know who.”

“There—­that’ll fetch him.”

“But he won’t know who—­will he?”

“No, but he’ll want to know, won’t he?”

“Why, certainly—­I didn’t think of that.  What made you think of it?”

“Knowledge of human curiosity.  Strong trait, very strong trait.”

“Now I’ll go to my room and write it out and enclose a dollar and tell them to print it to the worth of that.”

CHAPTER IV.

The day wore itself out.  After dinner the two friends put in a long and harassing evening trying to decide what to do with the five thousand dollars reward which they were going to get when they should find One-Armed Pete, and catch him, and prove him to be the right person, and extradite him, and ship him to Tahlequah in the Indian Territory.  But there were so many dazzling openings for ready cash that they found it impossible to make up their minds and keep them made up.  Finally, Mrs. Sellers grew very weary of it all, and said: 

“What is the sense in cooking a rabbit before it’s caught?”

Then the matter was dropped, for the time being, and all went to bed.  Next morning, being persuaded by Hawkins, the colonel made drawings and specifications and went down and applied for a patent for his toy puzzle, and Hawkins took the toy itself and started out to see what chance there might be to do something with it commercially.  He did not have to go far.  In a small old wooden shanty which had once been occupied as a dwelling by some humble negro family he found a keen-eyed Yankee engaged in repairing cheap chairs and other second-hand furniture.  This man examined the toy indifferently; attempted to do the puzzle; found it not so easy as he had expected; grew more interested, and finally emphatically so; achieved a success at last, and asked: 

“Is it patented?”