Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/124

 other at the bend of the toe. They had broken apart a pair of handcuffs, snapped one on his left wrist, and fastened his shirt cuff over it to conceal it and its dangling chain links. As a further disguise of guilt, they had made a sling for his left arm out of a handkerchief, and buttoned his coat over the bandage. And all the time that they had been thus making him up as a fugitive from justice, they had been coaching him in the story that he was to tell in the Langton bungalow when he should come upon it in the morning, after a night spent in the woods.

“Gather all the mud and scratches you can, now,” Babbing counseled finally. “And don’t forget to be hungry, I don’t suppose you ’ll be able to look thirsty if this storm keeps up. Go ahead.”

Barney had gone ahead, his mind fixed on the moment of his arrival at Langton’s door. He had overlooked the interval that must elapse. And when the touch of the wet leaf startled him, he was standing shivering in the