understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your
feeling--but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a
sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."

For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.

"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter
chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and
that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you
don't mind my saying so, sir--I don't want to seem rude--your trained
detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"

Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.

"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have
accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places
poor Arthur has _not_ been to and a great many people who have _not_
seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that
need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had
been drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot
agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution.
Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way
as could be managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping
the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends
and searching his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think
that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of
events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a
careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as
yet--nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to
work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall