Pringle heaved a sigh of relief. “I hated to name it to you,” he said. “Say, when Jeff first rescued you, exhumed you, resuscitated you, or whatever it was, he told me a little quotation the first time you went out and left us. His explanation went some like this:
“‘I traced my son through a street of broken windows, and found him dead of old age at five-and-twenty.’
“So, my boy, it’s back to the husks and the hogs for yours. You are assigned to cover the Street of Broken Windows. And that’s a pretty big order—in El Paso.”
The next morning Jeff found what he had been looking for these many days. In both the Times and the Herald was an inconspicuous personal in the modest retirement of the advertising section, of obscure wording and small type:
Now is the time for all good men and true to get a cautious move on the trail sit tight coming up.
It was the twenty-fourth day of his imprisonment.
Chapter XII
“No, no! the adventures first: explanations take such a dreadful time.”
—The Gryphon.
BILLY took up his quarters at the leading hotel and permeated both El Paso and Juarez with much abandon. He wired Cleveland, Ohio, for funds, and Cleveland responded generously, sending him, without delay or demur, a noble wad for the emergency.