"This is getting more exciting," muttered the young trailer. "Yet all signs point to the fact that I've got to make the grab all by myself. I wonder if I can down that chap and get the upper hand of him? I don't mind a thumping, but I'd be sadly ashamed of myself to let the fellow get away from me."
Millard was walking briskly, now. Next, he turned sharply to the left.
"Ah!" Then Jack Benson shot swiftly forward on tip-toe, trying to make no noise as he ran.
For the long-legged one had, to all seeming, at the distance, wheeled and gone through the wall of a brick building.
Just an instant later, however, this impossible feat was explained. The submarine boy found himself at the street-end of a narrow alley between two brick buildings.
"He has gone into the rear house, at the end of the alleyway," decided Benson, peering down this narrow thoroughfare. "He has left the door partly open, too. I'll have to have a look-in."
As he stole down the alley-way Jack Benson was too sensible, and by this time, too much experienced in the ways of a rougher world, not to suspect that there might be some trap in that door partly open. "He may have seen me, and may have left that door open on purpose," Benson reflected. "He may be lying in wait for me, inside. Or else he may have left that door open, just to make me suspect a trap and keep out. In the meantime, he may be slipping through a door on the other side of the house, and sneaking away from me."
For a few seconds Jack Benson paused thoughtfully on the step just outside the door that was partly ajar.
"I may walk into a trap, by going inside, or I may be letting that wretch walk out of one by staying out here," wavered Benson, torn between two impulses.
Then, just as suddenly, this thought flashed through his mind: