This was the remark.

Could they mean Shadow?

At once I pricked up my ears.

"No," was the reply. "I want to see him, though. What does he look like?"

"A young fellow with a smooth face, not more than eighteen, and slender as a girl."

It tallied with Shadow's appearance.

"None know him?"

"So it seems; leastways, none as has seen him yet ever saw him before. We had Dick Stanton come in and take a peep at him, and Dick says he ain't a detective—that is, a regular detective, at any rate."

"He was caught nosing around, though?"

"Yes."