CHAPTER XV.
CRAVEN SPEAKS AND NICK ACTS.
"Bested by a woman?" repeated Nick, in surprise. "How was that, Patsy?"
"You have read of tiger cats, haven't you? Well, this woman was one. She is a little beauty, black-haired, black-eyed, slender, supple, and sinuous, and, oh, my! but her muscles are steel! I am no jellyfish myself, but she waltzed away with me, all right.
"This is how it happened, Mr. Carter: After I'd made sure that you wouldn't croak from that tumble I rushed around the corner of the house after Mr. Mannion. He was going through the garden—a regular tangle of all kinds of bushes—and I skinned after him. As he went over the fence into the next street this woman—she's a young thing, not over eighteen—hailed him and he stopped. But not for long, for, catching sight of me, he left the woman and made a lightning sprint toward the woods. Over the fence I went, to fall into the arms of the woman. She was very affectionate, must have thought I was her long-lost brother, for she caught me around the neck and gave me a hug and a squeeze that would have made a young grizzly bear fall down with envy. Naturally I objected, but I couldn't be as forcible in my objection as I might have been under other circumstances, for I was dealing with a woman."
Nick smiled and Chick winked.
"First thing I knew she tripped me up. I wasn't looking for that sort of thing, you know, and it was only when my block bumped the ground that I realized that I was really up against a tough proposition. What did I do? Well, I had to throw her off, but tiger cats are hard customers to deal with. They are like rubber balls. You chuck them away and back they come. I am ashamed to say it, Mr. Carter, but I wasted ten minutes with that woman and only got away from her when she was quite willing that I should do so."
"Who is she?" inquired Nick.
"Give it up. She knows Mannion, though, and I'll bet a Swiss cheese against a plate of boarding-house hash that she knows where Mannion has gone."