“The dog will never be able to pick up the ether as our trail,” panted Kennedy; “that is, if he is any good and trained not to go off on wild-goose chases.”

On we hurried from the woods to the now dark and silent town.  It was indeed fortunate that the dog had been thrown off our scent, for the station was closed, and, indeed, if it had been open I am sure the station agent would have felt more like locking the door against two such tramps as we were, carrying a tin box and pursued by a dog, than opening it for us.  The best we could do was to huddle into a corner until we succeeded in jumping a milk-train that luckily slowed down as it passed Riverwood station.

Neither of us could wait to open the tin box in our apartment, and instead of going uptown Kennedy decided it would be best to go to a hotel near the station.  Somehow we succeeded in getting a room without exciting suspicion.  Hardly had the bellboy’s footsteps ceased echoing in the corridor than Kennedy was at work wrenching off the lid of the box with such leverage as the scanty furnishings of the room afforded.

At last it yielded, and we looked in curiously, expecting to find fabulous wealth in some form.  A few hundred dollars and a rope of pearls lay in it.  It was a good “haul,” but where was the vast spoil the counterfeiters had accumulated?  We had missed it.  So far we were completely baffled.

“Perhaps we had better snatch a couple of hours’ sleep,” was all that Craig said, stifling his chagrin.

Over and over in my mind I was turning the problem of where they had hidden the spoil.  I dozed off, still thinking about it and thinking that, even should they be captured, they might have stowed away perhaps a million dollars to which they could go back after their sentences were served.

It was still early for New York when Kennedy roused me by talking over the telephone in the room.  In fact, I doubt if he had slept at all.

Burke was at the other end of the wire.  His man had just reported that something had happened during the night at Riverwood, but he couldn’t give a very clear account.  Craig seemed to enjoy the joke immensely as he told his story to Burke.

The last words I heard were:  “All right.  Send a man up here to the station—­one who knows all the descriptions of these people.  I’m sure they will have to come into town to-day, and they will have to come by train, for their car is wrecked.  Better watch at the uptown stations, also.”

After a hasty breakfast we met Burke’s man and took our places at the exit from the train platforms.  Evidently Kennedy had figured out that the counterfeiters would have to come into town for some reason or other.  The incoming passengers were passing us in a steady stream, for a new station was then being built, and there was only a temporary structure with one large exit.

“Here is where the ‘portrait parle’ ought to come in, if ever,” commented Kennedy as he watched eagerly.