"Where is he?" he asked.
The man beckoned him to one side.
"I don't want everybody to hear our business," he said. "Your chum has succeeded in locating that rascally band of Muller's. They are at a place on the outside of the town. You and I will go to him in a hack, that was his message."
The man seemed sincere, but Herc was still inclined to doubt him.
"Where did you meet my shipmate?" he asked.
"Why, I'm a fisherman on the headwaters of the bay that runs up into Bartonville," was the rejoinder, with every appearance of frankness. "Your chum didn't want to leave the place where he had spotted the band, so he sent me after you and told me that you'd give me some money for my trouble."
This request for money lulled Herc's suspicions at once. Had the man not asked for it, the thing might have looked suspicious, but the fact that he expected to be rewarded for coming with the message seemed to indicate that he was honest and above board. But he had one more question to ask.
"Wouldn't it be a good plan to notify the police?" he said.
"He told me to do that," replied the man. "I stopped in at the station on the way up, and a patrol-wagon full of cops has started. We'll have to go fast to catch them."
Herc searched his pockets. But, as luck would have it, he could not find more than a few bits of silver. But the boys on their arrival had deposited in the hotel safe the money entrusted to them to pay their expenses, and also to defray the charges on the freighted goods. Herc recollected this, and thinking that it might be a good plan to have some money along, he withdrew a considerable part of their funds. Had he caught the glitter in the man's eyes, he would have been warned.