He suddenly darted forward, and bent down to look on the sidewalk near the curb. He picked something up and looked at it, and then ran along a few steps, looking in the curb or gutter.
Nick followed after him, and when he reached him, Patsy said:
“Here’s the trail. Little pieces of this yellow cloth. Chick was on the sneak here, and not in the open.”
Hurriedly, they followed this new trail, and it led them to the middle of the block on which was the house in which Patsy had his “row,” as he called it.
Indeed, when they came to a stop, they were almost opposite the door of that house.
Here, carefully placed against the bottom of a lamppost, was a ball of yellow cloth, about the size of a baseball.
“The end of the trail,” said Patsy.
“And Chick is somewhere about,” added Nick.
“I’ll give a signal that Chick will know if he’s here,” said Patsy. “Hide yourself.”
Nick went into a neighboring doorway, and Patsy, slipping into the street, got between two covered wagons that stood there, backed up to the curb, without horses in front of them.