A COLUMBIAN GUARD.
It was still our theory—Dave's and mine—that, granted our original quarry was still in the White City, we must sooner or later encounter it, if we continued to traverse the thickly populated enclosure long enough, and with an eye single to our search.
We believed as firmly, yes, more firmly than at first, that Delbras and his band were still, much of the time, in Midway; and after long watching we had grown to believe that they had somewhere upon Stony Island Avenue a retreat where all could find shelter and safety in time of need.
'But one thing's certain,' quoth Dave, when we were discussing the matter, 'wherever the place is, they can approach it from more directions and more entrances than one. They, some of them, have been seen to enter saloons, to go upstairs, around corners, and into basements, and are never seen to come out I can only account for it in one way.'
'And what is that?' I questioned.
'They enter always at the side or rear, and never at the front, and they only do this when they know, by signal, that the way is clear.'
'If that is true,' I said, 'we shall find them sooner or later.'
One of the characters assumed by me when going about the grounds in my capacity of a detective was that of a Columbian Guard. I had a natty blue uniform, in which, when donned with the addition of a brown curly wig, and a luxuriant moustache just light enough to be called blond, I became a really distinguished guard. And more than once, when thus attired, I have watched the conscious faces and overburdened shoulders and heads of the multitudes of uniformed martyrs who, on these oft-recurring dedication days, State and national, not to mention receptions to the great—native and foreign—tramped in sun, mud, or rain, arrayed in all the rainbow hues, beplumed, gilded, and uncomfortable, and have thanked the good sense and good taste that evolved for the manly good-looking 'C. G.' a uniform at once tasteful, soldierly, and subdued, in which one might walk abroad and not feel shamefacedly aware that he was too brilliantly picturesque for comfort.
In this array I had more than once passed my acquaintances of the bureau and the hospital, Miss Jenrys and her aunt, and even Lossing, until one day it occurred to me that I might keep him near me, enjoy his society, and still be on duty, by making myself known; and so, until he chose to go on duty for a part of the day, we went up and down Midway, and in and out of the foreign villages together, as Dave described us, 'keeping step, with our chin-straps up.'
We had made our first appearance in the Plaisance as a brace of guards off duty, on the day upon which I posted the decoy letter to the little brunette.