"I did; between us we have men on the north, east and south, and the river is on the west. Maybe we have that crook's headquarters surrounded, and maybe we haven't."
"We may as well start out there," Verbeck put in.
The chief got into the roadster with him; the sheriff had a car of his own, driven by a deputy. They drove rapidly through the city and out along the river road. They came to the resort, and got out and parked their cars. The sheriff and the chief began receiving reports from their forces.
All the buildings in the resort had been searched well, and nothing found. Men had discovered nothing suspicious in the woods. There was a large fish cannery near, and it had been investigated thoroughly. The men scattered around the woods were closing in, drawing the net tighter.
The wire squad was at work. They had followed the wire from the little cottage, after making an investigation there and being sure that the cottage was not the entrance to a subterranean abode used by the Black Star. Even while the man in charge of the squad was making his report, word was flashed down the line that the extra wire had been found.
The sheriff and chief got into Verbeck's machine, and he drove them a quarter of a mile down the road. The wire had been tapped in a very clever manner, as one of the electricians of the department explained. It was running underground, through a small cable.
The chief called for more of his men, and they began unearthing the line. It seemed to run straight toward the east, and through the woods. The chief sent a captain and half a dozen men ahead of the wire squad.
"We're getting close to them, I think," the chief declared. "I feel that this is going to be our lucky day."
After a time they found a telephone instrument attached to the wire and hidden beneath a heap of brush. Next they came upon the old farmhouse, with the wire fence around it. There the telephone wire left the ground and ran from tree to tree through the grove, to disappear into the building.
"There!" the chief said. "We'll get the place surrounded——"