"Do you know that they took the New York train?" questioned Dyke.
"No; I'm not positive about that, either. You might telegraph ahead and find if such a couple is on the train."
This was a wise suggestion.
Dyke acted upon it, but failed to derive any satisfaction.
And there was good reason for this, since when leaving Chicago a dark man, with smooth face and gray-tinged hair, accompanied Nell Darrel; whereas, before reaching the borders of New York State, the place of this man had been taken by a man with red beard and hair, blue glasses, and a well-worn silk plug.
This change disturbed identities completely. The change had been made at a way station, without causing remark among the passengers, the most of whom were not through for the great city. Once New York whelmed them, the scheming villain and poor Nell would be lost forever to the man-tracker of the West.
There was a suspicion in the brain of Dyke Darrel that he scarcely dared whisper to his own consciousness. It was that Harper Elliston had a hand in the late villainy. The detective's eyes were open at last, and he realized that his New York friend was not what he seemed. It was this fact that induced Dyke Darrel to believe that the abductor of Nell had turned his face toward the American metropolis. At once he made search for Harry Bernard and Paul Ender.
Neither of them was he able to find, and he had not seen them for two days previous.
It did not matter, however.
Leaving word at the hotel that he had gone to New York, Dyke Darrel once more hastened to the depot, arriving just in time to leap aboard the express headed for the Atlantic seaboard.