"I found a place where somebody had camped—a sort of a den under an overhang of limestone. But there wasn't any one in the quarry."
"That must have been the place where Brady has been hanging out."
"So you captured him and he got away from you! Well, he's about as slippery a crook as you'll find in eleven states."
The two trees by the canal were soon reached, and the Hawk was moored just as she had been the other time. Graydon, after turning over his revolver to Matt, stretched out in the bottom of the car with his rolled-up coat under his head and was quickly snoring.
But there was not to be much sleep for Matt or Ferral that night. It might be, as Harris had said, that "lightning never struck twice in the same place," but the two lads were not taking any chances. Armed with Graydon's revolver they felt equal to any emergency that might confront them, but to close their eyes seemed out of the question. They patrolled the ground in the vicinity of the two trees. This was more as a precaution to keep themselves awake than anything else.
"Too blooming bad we just missed getting Miss Brady away from that outfit," muttered Ferral. "If we'd got to Hooligan's half an hour sooner, we might have rescued the girl."
"We can't tell what would have happened," returned Matt. "Those scoundrels had the automobile—don't forget that—and they didn't stop at Hooligans very long after they got there from the quarry."
"Long enough, anyhow, so that we could have grabbed the machine if we had known about it. Now there's no telling where Pete and Whipple have taken the girl. With that automobile, they may be thirty miles from here, by now."
"It will be easier to find them with the automobile than if they had got away without it. They'll have to keep to the best roads, and Harris can telegraph all over this part of the country. Every automobile will be closely scanned, and if Pete and Whipple get away they'll be a whole lot more clever than I think they are."
"They'll only use the old flugee by night, mate. During the daytime they will hide away somewhere."