"That's too bad," cried Dan Baxter. "You must have made a bad break of it, Bradner."
"I did my best, but I couldn't keep them from looking around, although I offered to conduct them. You can bet if I had had them under my care they wouldn't have got near the Western Palace, nor Jack Wumble either."
"Did you have a man ready to play the part of Wumble?" questioned
Dan Baxter, after the burly one had ordered drinks for the two.
"Yes, I had Bill Noxton all cocked and primed. But now our cake is dough—and after all the trouble I've taken for your father, too!" And Henry Bradner uttered a snort of disgust.
"Did you warn this Noxton?"
"Oh, yes, and I put a flea into the ear of the hotel clerk, too. But the thing is, what do you suppose your father will want done next?"
"Don't ask me," answered Dan Baxter recklessly. "He don't half trust me any more. He says I'm only good to sponge on him," and the former bully of Putnam Hall gave a bitter laugh.
"Well, I haven't followed these Rovers all the way from Valley Brook farm to here for nothing," went on Henry Bradner. "Your father wanted 'em watched, and I've watched 'em ever since they came home from that boarding academy. It was a big job, too."
"Didn't they suspect you?"
"One of 'em said he thought he had seen me before." And Bradner laughed. "It was at the Valley Brook Church. I followed them to the church just to keep my word to your father."