"You have seen Wadleigh?"
"Yes, and he had something to tell me. I did not have time to talk with him because I had this scheme on hand with that fellow. Oh, I only wish I had known his game, and I would have laid a different course. He had it all his own way, as I said, when we thought we had it ours. It would have been a big thing, however, if our little trick of to-night had not miscarried. We would have had that chap in a hole that only a full confession would have gotten him out of, and then it is doubtful if we would have let him off alive."
Oscar had overheard enough, and he did not give the rascals the credit he would have done had they suspected his little dodge in listening to what they had to say after the shindy, and again, as they were to follow him he knew he could get on to them when the time came. It was to be a game of hide-and-seek, and he felt assured that with the brave and magical Cad Metti he could give them points on a double shadow. He stole down the stairs, gained the street, and as he walked away he was joined by Cad, and he said:
"Well, sis, you appeared at the right moment."
"Yes, Oscar, I feared they had some desperate game to pay. I knew your rashness. I fell to your track and when you entered that house I sought out some of our friends and had them at hand to drag you out of a bad scrape."
"Sis, I was in a pretty bad scrape, and you appeared on deck at exactly the right moment."
"That is what I intended to do, but what was their purpose?"
"Cad, to tell the truth, I don't know."
"How did they get on to you?"
"They caught me peeping on the fellow Wadleigh. There is where they played it nice on me."