Yet for a few moments longer Dave heard the international spy moving about as though still searching. Then the fellow's footsteps died out as he went around the corner.
"I'll wait a few minutes before I step out," Darrin decided. "Gortchky may only be laying a trap, and even at this instant he may be peering around the corner to see if any one steps out of one of these doorways."
Waiting for what seemed to be a long time, but what was actually only a few minutes, the young ensign stepped out to the sidewalk again.
There were a few people on his own side of the block, and the sight of any one leaving a house was not likely to arouse curiosity in the minds of the denizens of that neighborhood.
As Dave neared the next corner, however, four rough-looking fellows came out of a little café. Their bearing was full of swagger. These young men, in dress half student and half laborer, with caps pulled down over their eyes and gaily-knotted handkerchiefs around their necks, displayed the shifting, cunning look that is found in the hoodlum everywhere.
As they reached the sidewalk, moving with the noiseless step peculiar to the Apache, they heard Darrin briskly coming along. Halting, they regarded him closely as he neared them.
"They look like hard characters," Dave told himself. "However, if I mind my business, I guess they'll mind theirs."
It was not to be. One of the Apaches, the tallest and slimmest of the lot, regarded Darrin with more curiosity than did any of the others.
"Ho!" he cried. "See how stiffly our little student carries himself! He must have been to see his sweetheart, and feels proud of himself."
"He has the stride of a banker," jeered another. "I wonder if he has his bank with him."