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Rh a thin overcoat and a slouch hat, and a heavy beard covered his face.

Dick hurried his steps and called Tom, and then went back to the other hallway, unwilling to leave it unguarded even for a few minutes He was just in time to see somebody disappearing down a broad flight of stairs to the floor below.

"Hello! who's that?" he asked himself, and ran towards the stairs. When he arrived there he looked down, to see the man going down further, to the ground floor of the hotel.

"The same fellow, I'll bet all I'm worth!" cried Dick. "There is that heavy beard! He must have been watching for a chance to get away! What a chump I was to let him get out! I've got to stop him!" And he bounded down the stairs three steps at a time.

By the time Dick reached the next floor the man was in the lower corridor of the big hotel. Here, in spite of the hour, quite a few people were stirring—coming in from late suppers after an evening at the play or opera. The man moved into the crowd and towards the main entrance on. Broadway.

"Hi! Stop him! Stop that man!" cried the oldest Rover boy, as he, too, gained the lower corridor. But the man had already gotten out