“'There's a note for you, sir, at the bar,' said the landlord. I took it, and read:—
“'Dear Colonel,—Thinking a little fresh air might serve me, I have gone out for a short drive.—Yours, till we meet again,
“'J. T.'
“Yes, sir, he was off; and worse, too, had carried away with him that great book with all the writin' in, and that account of Hawke's poison in'. I started in pursuit as quick as they could get me a wagon hitched, but I suppose I took the wrong road. I went to Utica, and then turned north as far as Albany, but I lost him. Better, perhaps, that I did so; I was riled considerable, and I ain't sure that I mightn't have done somethin' to be sorry for. Ain't it wonderful how ill one takes anythin' that reflects on one's skill and craftiness?—just as if such qualities were great ones; I believe, in my heart, we are readier to resent what insults our supposed cleverness than what is an outrage on our honesty. Be that as it may, I never came up with him after, nor heard of him, till I read his name in that sheet.”
“His theft of that book, connected with his companionship with Winthrop, suggests strongly the thought that his business here is the same as our own,” said the doctor.
“That's the way I reasoned it too,” said the Colonel.
“It is not impossible, besides, that he had some suspicion of your own object in this journey. Did the name of Winthrop ever come up in conversation between you?”
“Yes. I was once describin' my brother's location down in Ohio,—I did it a purpose to see if he would show any signs of interest about Peddar's Clearin's and Holt's Acre,—and then I mentioned, as if by chance, one Harvey Winthrop.
“'Oh, there was a man of that name in Liverpool once,' said he, 'but he died about two years gone.'
“'Did he?' said I, lookin' him hard.