“Good afternoon, then,” nodded Tom. “Drop in again, won't you? Any time within working hours.”
“Confound that fellow Reade!” muttered Ransom angrily as he rode back to Paloma. “He knows altogether too much—or suspects it. I shall have to call Jim Duff's attention to him!”
“Why did you string the fellow so?” asked Harry when the chums were alone once more.
“I didn't,” Reade retorted. “I came very close to giving him straight information.”
“Now he'll be more on his guard.”
“That won't do him any good,” Tom yawned. “He has been on his guard all along, yet we found him out. For that matter, any man who lives regularly at the Mansion House these days is open to our suspicion.”
For the Mansion House, ever since Tom's having been ordered away, had been a losing proposition. Now and then a traveling salesman stopped there, though not many.
“By the way, Harry,” predicted Tom, as the chums were riding back to Paloma at the close of the afternoon, “look out, in about three of four days, for a new and permanent guest at the Cactus House.”
“Who's coming?” inquired Hazelton.
“Whatever man the Colthwaite Company decides to send to the Cactus House as soon as headquarters in Chicago receives Ransom's report. I think we'll know that new chap, too, when he shows up. Also, you'll find that the new man is either an avowed enemy of Ransom, after a little, or else he won't choose to know Ransom at all.”