that," answered the chief. "No; I'm dragging the town, and I also have
a man at the railway station, and another watching the water front."

"I can't understand how the fellow who called himself Hodges ever got
Judson to write him a letter of introduction to me," muttered Mr. Farnum.

"Do you know Judson's writing?" asked the police chief, suspiciously.

"No-o-o," admitted Mr. Farnum. "But the letter was written on the
letter-head of Judson's hotel."

"Anyone can get a hotel letter-head," retorted the police official,
sagely. "You'd better let me have that letter, and I'll write Judson
to wire me whether he ever signed it."

Farnum passed over the letter, though he muttered, disgustedly:

"Good heavens, have I reached my present only to be taken in with a
faked letter of introduction?"

"If you have," responded the chief of police, grimly, "you won't be the
only traveled, wide awake business man who has been caught by a trick
like that. In this country, where letters of introduction are passed
around as freely as cigars, it's very seldom that a man stops to wonder
whether the letter handed him is genuine."

An hour later the chief was back, to report that a man answering Hodges'
description had taken a train north bound, not buying a ticket.

"I've telegraphed to have the fellow arrested at a point along the