The cry was taken up by several others, and all began to run after Nick Smithers.
"Keep my valise—I'll catch him if I can!" said Nat, to the hotel clerk, and off he sped, and was soon ahead of the others who had joined in the chase.
If there was one thing that Nick Smithers could do well, it was to run, and now he made the best possible use of his rather long legs. He darted out of a side door of the hotel, down the square, and around a corner leading into a back street lined with small shops and dwellings.
"The young fool!" he muttered, as he sped along. "Who would have dreamed of his turning up in such a place as this?"
At last the swindler turned into another street. A car was passing and he hopped aboard this. Not to be seen, he dropped into a seat and crouched down. He rode on the car a distance of a dozen squares and then left, and hurried to a small house setting far back, in a rather neglected garden. The house was to let, and he pretended to be looking it over, and thus passed to a back porch and out of sight.
Nat continued the hunt for the swindler for a good hour and then gave it up.
"Well, how did you make out?" asked the hotel clerk, upon his return.
"He got away from me."
"He put on a pretty good front, if he was a swindler."
"Yes—that's how he came to swindle me and several others," answered our hero.