"Do so."

"Release me and I will."

"I'm not that green."

The prisoner muttered angrily. He realized that he was fairly caught,
and that it was too late now to think of deceiving the famous
detective.

Dyke Darrel had recognized in the young man calling himself Watson
Wilks an old offender, who had made his escape from the Missouri State
prison three months before, and he at once surmised that the young
counterfeiter, who was a hard case, might have had a hand in the
murder and robbery of the express messenger. Reasoning thus, the
detective decided upon promptly arresting the fellow before proceeding
to search further. It would be safer to have Skidway in prison than at
large in any event.

More than one pair of eyes had watched the departure of Dyke Darrel
and his prisoner from Chicago, and a little later a bearded man, with
deep-set, twinkling eyes, and the general look of a hard pet, thrust
his head into Madge Scarlet's little room, and said:

"It are all up with the kid, Mrs. Scarlet."

"What's that you say?"

The woman came to her feet and confronted the new-comer with an