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204 understanding," Verbeck said. "You gentlemen must stop scrapping and become allies. We have a big job on hand, and we want to wind it up as quickly as possible."

Then he told them of his conversation with the Black Star, and of what Muggs had said.

"Let them go?" Kowen screeched. "I'd let him wreck the town first! Those crooks are in jail, and they're going to stay there!"

"That isn't the point," Verbeck interrupted. "It's the little tip Muggs gave that interests us. According to what he said, the Black Star's headquarters are near the river, and I believe, when he spoke of the music, that he meant the resort park."

"I think you're right!" the chief exclaimed.

"But where could the headquarters be in that locality?" the sheriff wanted to know.

"It's our job to find out," the chief said, "and we'll start at daylight. If we can locate it before night, perhaps we can stop whatever it is that the big crook intends to do."

The telephone bell rang again. The call was for the sheriff, and he spent some time listening to the person at the other end of the wire. When he turned toward them again, his face was beaming.

"It begins to look good," he said. "That was from the manager of the telephone company. He looked up that number that Landers called. It is a little summer cottage far up the river beyond the resort park."

"Great!" the chief exclaimed. "We'll land 'em yet!"

"But that isn't the funny thing about it. The manager says he sent a man out there in a machine.