"Should!" agreed the magistrate, enigmatically, "'stiff's' the word for him." He glanced up at the lowering sky. "Hullo! It's beginning to snow again—you found those tracks just in time, Sergeant."
Six days elapsed. Six days of fruitless, monotonous work. The evening of the seventh found the trio disconsolately reunited in their detachment. Their quest had failed. Slavin, not sparing himself, had worked Yorke and Redmond to the limits of their endurance, and they, fully realizing the importance of their objective, had responded loyally.
Gully, apparently betraying a keen interest in the case, had gone out of his way to assist them—both on the railroad and in scouring the country-side. They were absolutely and utterly played out, and their nerves were jangled and snappy. No possible hiding-place had been overlooked—yet the hobo—Dick Drinkwater—the one man who undoubtedly held the key to the mysterious murder of Larry Blake—had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him up.
The horses cared for, and supper over, Yorke and Redmond lay back on their cots and blaguè'd each other wearily anent their mutual ill-luck. Slavin, critically conning over a lengthy crime-report on the case that he had prepared for headquarters, flung his composition on the table and leant back dejectedly in his chair.
"Hoboes?" quoth he, darkly, and tongue-clucked in dismal fashion. "Eyah! I just fancy I can hear th' ould man dishcoursin' tu Kilbride av th' merry, int'restin' ways an' habits av th' genus—hobo—whin he get's this report av mine. . . . Like he did wan day whin he was doin' show-man round th' cells wid a bunch av ould geezers av 'humanytaruns.' I mind I was Actin' Provo' in charge av th' Gyard-room at th1 toime."
He sighed deeply, folded up the report and thrust it into an official envelope. "Well, bhoys," he concluded, "we have done all that men can'—for th' toime bein' anyways."
Yorke laughed somewhat mirthlessly and gazed dreamily up at his pictures. "Sure have," he agreed languidly; "from now on, though, I guess we'll just have to take a leaf out of Micawber's book—'wait for something to turn up,' eh, Reddy, my old son?"
There was no answer. That young worthy, utterly exhausted, had drifted into the arms of Morpheus.
CHAPTER X
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
SHAKESPEARE.