The detective and Gallegher put out the cab’s lamps and led the horse toward a long, low shed in the rear of the yard, which they now noticed was almost filled with teams of many different makes, from the Hobson’s choice of a livery stable to the brougham of the man about town.

“No,” said Gallegher, as the cabman stopped to hitch the horse beside the others, “we want it nearest that lower gate.  When we newspaper men leave this place we’ll leave it in a hurry, and the man who is nearest town is likely to get there first.  You won’t be a-following of no hearse when you make your return trip.”

Gallegher tied the horse to the very gate-post itself, leaving the gate open and allowing a clear road and a flying start for the prospective race to Newspaper Row.

The driver disappeared under the shelter of the porch, and Gallegher and the detective moved off cautiously to the rear of the barn.  “This must be the window,” said Hefflefinger, pointing to a broad wooden shutter some feet from the ground.

“Just you give me a boost once, and I’ll get that open in a jiffy,” said Gallegher.

The detective placed his hands on his knees, and Gallegher stood upon his shoulders, and with the blade of his knife lifted the wooden button that fastened the window on the inside, and pulled the shutter open.

Then he put one leg inside over the sill, and leaning down helped to draw his fellow-conspirator up to a level with the window.  “I feel just like I was burglarizing a house,” chuckled Gallegher, as he dropped noiselessly to the floor below and refastened the shutter.  The barn was a large one, with a row of stalls on either side in which horses and cows were dozing.  There was a haymow over each row of stalls, and at one end of the barn a number of fence-rails had been thrown across from one mow to the other.  These rails were covered with hay.

In the middle of the floor was the ring.  It was not really a ring, but a square, with wooden posts at its four corners through which ran a heavy rope.  The space inclosed by the rope was covered with sawdust.

Gallegher could not resist stepping into the ring, and after stamping the sawdust once or twice, as if to assure himself that he was really there, began dancing around it, and indulging in such a remarkable series of fistic manoeuvres with an imaginary adversary that the unimaginative detective precipitately backed into a corner of the barn.

“Now, then,” said Gallegher, having apparently vanquished his foe, “you come with me.”  His companion followed quickly as Gallegher climbed to one of the haymows, and crawling carefully out on the fence-rail, stretched himself at full length, face downward.  In this position, by moving the straw a little, he could look down, without being himself seen, upon the heads of whomsoever stood below.  “This is better’n a private box, ain’t it?” said Gallegher.

The boy from the newspaper office and the detective lay there in silence, biting at straws and tossing anxiously on their comfortable bed.