Garrick leaped back into our car and I followed.  He turned the bend almost on two wheels, and let her out as we swept down a short hill and then took the gentle incline on high speed, eating up the distance as though it had been inches instead of nearly a mile.

A short distance from the top of the hill, Garrick applied the brake, just in time so that the top of our car would not be visible to one who had passed on down the next incline into the valley beyond.

“Let us walk up the rest of the way,” he said quickly, “and see what is on the other side of this hill.”

We did so cautiously.  Far down below us we could see the car which we had been trailing all the way up from the city, threading its way along the country road.  We watched it, and as we did so, it slowed up and turned out, running up a sort of lane that led to what looked like a trim little country estate.

The car had stopped at an unpretentious house at the end of the lane.  The driver got out and walked up to the back door, which seemed to be stealthily opened to admit him.

“Good!” exclaimed Garrick.  “At last we are on a hot trail!”

CHAPTER XXI

THE SIEGE OF THE BANDITS

As we watched from the top of the hill, I wondered what Garrick’s next move was to be.  Surely he would not attempt to investigate the place yet.  In fact, there seemed to be nothing that could be done now, as long as it was day-light, for any movement in this half-open country would have been viewed with suspicion by the occupants of the little house in the valley, whoever they might be.

We could not help viewing the place with a sort of awe.  What secrets did the cottage hide, nestled down there in the valley among these green hills?  Often I had heard that the gunmen of New York, when hard pressed, sought refuge in the country districts and mountains within a few miles of the city.  There was something incongruous about it.  Nature seemed so perfectly peaceful here that it was the very antithesis of those sections of the city in which he had found the gunman, whoever he was, indulging in practically every crime and vice of decadent civilization.

“So—­the one they call the Boss has led up to the refuge of the Chief, the scientific gunman, at last,” Garrick exclaimed, with marked satisfaction, as we turned and walked slowly back again to our car.

“Yes,” I assented, “and now that we have found them—­what are we to do with them?”

“It is still early in the day,” Garrick remarked, looking at his watch.  “They suspect no trouble up here.  Here they evidently feel safe.  No doubt they think we are still hunting for them fruitlessly in New York.  I think we can afford to leave them here for a few hours.  At any rate, I feel that I must return to the city.  I must see Dillon, and then drop into my office, if we are to accomplish anything against them.”