“I didn’t come up by train.”

“Maybe you walked,” he went on, with some anxiety.

“Oh no; I rode in a carriage.”

“Humph!  It seems to me you must have been in a tremendous hurry.”

“Perhaps I was.”

“Why, you excite my curiosity.  May I ask the cause of your sudden impatience?”

He put the question in an apparently careless fashion, but his sharp eyes betrayed his keen interest.

“You may.”

“And what, was it?”

I looked at him for a moment in silence.

“I came to see a man.”

“Ah!  A friend?  Perhaps he is seriously sick.”

“I don’t know if he is sick or not.”

“And yet you hurried to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that—­ that is out of the ordinary.”  He hesitated for a moment.  “Of course it is none of my business, but I am interested.  Perhaps I know the party and can help you.  May I ask his name?”

“It’s the same man you telegraphed to,” I returned.

Mr. Allen Price stopped short and nearly dropped his handbag.  My unexpected reply had taken the “wind out of his sails.”

“I telegraphed to?” he repeated.

“Exactly.”

“But—­ but I telegraphed to no one.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Why, my dear young friend, you are mistaken.”

“I’m not your dear friend,” I returned with spirit.  “You telegraphed to Chris Holtzmann to beware of me.  Why did you do it?”

The man’s face fell considerably, and he did not answer.  I went on:—­

“You are following me and trying to defeat the object of my trip to Chicago.  But you shall not do it.  You pretend to be an ordinary traveller, but you are nothing more than a spy sent on by Mr. Aaron Woodward to stop me.  But I have found you out, and now you can go back to him and tell him that his little plan didn’t work.”

The man’s brow grew black with anger.  He was very angry, and I could see that it was with difficulty he kept his hands off me.

“Think you’re smart, don’t you?” he sneered.

“I was too smart for you.”

“But you don’t know it all,” he went on.  “You don’t know it all—­ not by a jugful.”

“I know enough to steer clear of you.”

“Maybe you do.”

The man evidently did not know what to say, and as a matter of fact, neither did I. I had told him some plain truths, and now I was anxious to get away from him and think out my future course of action.

“What’s your idea of calling on Chris Holtzmann?” he went an after a long pause.

“That’s my business.”

“It won’t do you any good.”

“Perhaps it may.”

“I know it won’t,” he replied in decided tones.

“What do you know about it?” I said sharply.  “A moment ago you denied knowing anything about me.  Now I’ve done with you, and I want you to leave me alone.”