“Do you think the same bunch is operating both jobs?” asked Howden.
“Sure!” replied Jim.
“Oh, give us a rest!” broke in Brenchfield. “A smart lot you wise-Alicks know about it. To hear you talk, one would think you had been raised on a detective farm.”
Jim laughed good-naturedly.
“All right, old man! Don’t get sore. You’ve been a grouch ever since we asked you to come along. One would think you didn’t have any interests tied up in this affair.”
“Then I guess that one has another think coming,” answered the Mayor.
“Well,––you’re devilish enthusiastic over it; that’s all I’ve got to say,” interjected Morrison, who was simply bubbling over with excitement and expectancy,––not so much from the thought of recovering his stolen property as from a hope that, if the thieves were captured, he would at last have a chance to reap the benefits of his labours, unmolested.
“Who wants to be enthusiastic on a wild-goose chase like this?” commented Brenchfield. “I’ve been on the run these last three weeks, dancing all this evening, and now the delightful prospect of lying in a ditch till morning, 173 and nothing at all at the end of it but the possibility of a rheumatic fever. You juvenile bath-tub pirates and Sherlock Holmeses give me a pain.”
“And I’ll bet you a new hat we’ll land the whole rotten bunch of them before we’re through,” challenged Morrison.
“Forget it!” grouched Brenchfield, “I’ve lost as much as any man here, but I haven’t made a song and dance about it like some people I know. I am just as anxious as any of you to see the thieves in jail.”