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Dashwood’s heart soared This was the blac

ksmith who had fashioned the hook that had derailed the Coast Line Limited This man had seen the Wrecker

“Who are you?” asked the blacksmith

“Van Dorn investigator,” Ja he knew, he was flat on his back, and the blacks full tilt down an alley

“Stop!” Dashwood yelled, juave chase The blacksile, whipping around corners as if he were on rails, losing no speed in his h backyards, tearing through laundry hung froardens and onto a street But he hadn’t the stamina of a man just out of boyhood who neither sained on hi, but no one on the sidewalks was inclined to get in the path of such a big ht

He caught up in front of a Presbyterian church on a tree-lined street Grouped on the sideere threecollar, the choir the congregation’s account books under his arm The blacksmith barreled past them, with James hot on his tail

“Stop!”

Only a yard behind, Ja tackle As he flew, he took a heel on the chin, but he still ed to close his skinny arms around the blacksmith’s ankles They crashed to the sidewalk, rolled onto a lawn, and scra to the blacksh

“Now that you caught hi to do with him?”

The answer came from the blacksmith himself in the form of a wide fist ribbed with thick knuckles When Jarass, with the threedown curiously at him

“Where’d he go?” said James

“He ran off”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere he wanted to, I’d reckon Are you all right, sonny?”

Ja to his feet and wiped the blood off his face with a handkerchief his iven him when he ency