“Let me out of this!” he growled, as he backed toward his companions. “We got a fat chance of following that yellow devil into his hole. You go, if you want to!”
Monte shook his head. He had regained his poise, and he had been thinking.
“No use trying to follow,” he admitted. “We got to comb Chinatown for the two of them. They can’t live down in that burrow forever. But why did this duck show himself? He must have known we were here—he could hear us talking!”
The “Kid” smiled craftily.
“Maybe him and the Count left something,” he suggested. “We better have a look!”
“No, they didn’t leave nothing. I would have seen it if they had. I got an idea the Chink wanted us to see him! He stood there with his face turned into the light. Well, we got to find him! That’s flat!”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MAN IN THE LIGHTED ROOM
The wolves shifted their quarters that night to a rooming-house on the edge of Chinatown, and the search for Colonel Knight and his mysterious companion, the tall Chinaman, began.
For three days they worked feverishly. Monte Jerome seemed never to sleep, and his temper was not at all improved by the ordeal. He drove his companions fiercely, and only the fact that they were playing for big stakes prevented open rebellion.
On the fourth day Monte and the “Kid,” who were loitering, alert but almost hopeless, in the entrance to a building in one of the narrow streets of the Oriental quarter, caught sight of a figure disappearing through a doorway. It was a tall figure, partly concealed by a light overcoat; but both of them leaped forward at the same instant.