CHAPTER XXX.

MARCUS DISCOVERS A CLUE.

Dean Mercer’s heart beat with unwonted rapidity as he saw the officers and anticipated that they were intending to arrest him. Arrest again at that stage of his work meant defeat to all his plans. Instinctively he glanced around to see if Marcus was near, but his friend was nowhere in sight.

“It will take but a minute to go to the house,” said the man. “Once you have engaged your room you can attend to--think those officers are after you?”

The sudden break in his speech was occasioned by the fact that the officials had started toward them.

Perhaps the man employed by Colonel Darringford was afraid his prey would escape him, for, without further warning, he seized Dean by the collar, hissing between his clenched teeth:

“You don’t get away!”

At this critical moment, just as Dean was about to try and break away from the clutch of the man, some one shouted from the next street:

“Help! murder! thieves!”

The officers stopped, looking wildly in the direction of the cries:

“Help! I’ve got him!” came the voice. “Hel--lp!”

The two officers, thinking it was their quarry, no doubt, ran in that direction. The hand upon Dean Mercer’s shoulder relaxed its hold, and in the excitement Dean slipped away.

It is surprising how quickly a crowd will collect. Inside of a minute, as it seemed to the main actors, a hundred persons had appeared upon the scene.

Wild questions were asked, one after another, and wilder answers were given. The appeals for help had stopped, but some one declared he had seen an individual fleeing along a cross street. Thither the officers sped in hot haste.

Dean had not gone more than a square, when he heard Marcus say:

“This way--quick!”

Dean followed his friend, and the two sped across the town in the direction taken by the crowd, but soon running at right angles.

“There is a boat at the lower landing,” panted Marcus, “and we can get it by running fast.”

A launch, somewhat similar to the one they had come on from Millville, was just about to clear the pier.

“We are barely in time,” said Marcus, as he and Dean motioned for the boat to wait for them.

The confusion attending the scene in the other part of the town had not reached here, and the captain simply thinking the boys had been sprinting to catch his launch, willingly waited for them to come aboard.

“Another minute, boys, and you would have missed us,” he greeted, cheerily. “Want to go to Springfield?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Marcus.

A few minutes later, when he felt that they were safe from pursuit by their enemies, Marcus said aside to his friend:

“A close call.”

“It was,” replied Dean, “and I must confess I do not understand now just what took place. The officers were about to arrest me, though for what I do not know, when that alarm came and in the excitement I managed to get away.”

“I created the outcry,” declared Marcus proudly. “I did it to give you a chance to get away in the confusion. You see Colonel Darringford had telephoned down here for the officers to be in readiness to arrest you as an escaped inmate of the reform school.”

“I did not think of that. I see his scheme. Do you suppose they will telephone ahead to Springfield?”

“No doubt; but forewarned is forearmed, you know. We’ll give them the slip there.”

The confidence of his companion gave Dean courage, and they continued their trip to the city with good courage.

“By the way,” said Marcus a little later, “I am awfully sorry for getting mad with you last night when you would not escape from that old lockup as I wanted you to do. I can see now that you were wiser than I.”

“It is all forgiven, Marcus, if there was really anything to forgive. But have you any plan of action when we get to Springfield?”

“No, but I think I have something here that will help us to lay our plans. I have found out who your worst enemy is.”

“Who?”

“Tim Downey. Here is proof of it in a letter that Daley dropped on his way to Millville and I picked up. It is postmarked Portsmouth.”

“That’s south of here.”

“Yes; fifty miles down the river. He writes that he is in trouble. He says that if Daley will come to Portsmouth, he will put him in the way of making another thousand dollars.”

“Do you think he has spent all of that money?”

“I don’t know what to make of it. Read for yourself and tell me what you think of it.”

The letter read:

“You see we were chumps in not going to the city. We had money enuff to fly high. The cash is safe, but we haven’t got it, for cash and papers were lost in a strange way. We know where it is, but you must come and help us get it.”

“We?” said Dean, “then there are two of them?”

“Yes.”

“And they had the money?”

“At least a portion of it.”

“And the papers?”

“It looks so.”

“And they are at Portsmouth?”

“Near there, or there, yes,” replied Marcus.

“Will we go there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When?”

“To-night. Hold on, Dean, read the rest of the letter.”

Dean did so.

It concluded:

“If you come, do it at once, or else we will go off on the search for the money alone--me and my friend----”

“Why!” cried Dean, as he read the name that followed, “the boy with him is Rodney Darringford!”

“Yes. They must make a pair of precious scamps. And we must be on hand by the time Daley and Spofford arrive. Let us hope that we can round up the entire gang at once.”

“If I can dodge the officers at Springfield.”

“We must manage that somehow. I have an idea that we had better leave the launch at the small place a few miles this side of the city. From thence we can in some way manage to get to Portsmouth. I want to see mother, but I shall have to put it off. Poor mother! how much worry I have given her, but I do not think it was my fault wholly. Somehow things have gone hard with me, but I hope the end is near. Once I can get those papers and free father, I can clear my own name.”

“Success to you, Marcus. We must stand together a little longer. What’s that the captain is saying? We are getting close down to Turtle-back.”

“Where we must leave the boat. We have a long trip before us, but we must show that we are equal to it.”