“Does he intend to enter, or will he wait for the girl?” Chick asked himself. “I’ll remain here until she comes, at all events. If he does not then show up, I’ll cross over and enter with her. I’ll give the rat no chance to harm her, let come what may.”
Chick’s uncertainty was not of long duration.
The man under the steps, if still there, continued to lie low.
Twenty minutes passed, and the watching detective then saw two girls stop at a house nearly a block away. He could see them quite distinctly, the avenue in that locality then being deserted. They parted after a few moments, one entering the house, the other hurrying north. Half a minute brought her nearly to the boarding-house steps—from under which darted a sinister figure that immediately blocked her way.
Chick heard the half-subdued cry of alarm that broke from her, as well as what followed.
“Bart!” she cried, shrinking. “You here!”
“You bet I’m here!” The reply came with a wolfish snarl. “So you’d have let ’em get me, would you?”
“Get you! What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. You’d have given me to the guns. You know—and I know.”
“Bart——”