Chapter 3 - Page 2

there Garay, the spy, trying to open it."

"Dagaeoga does not dream?"

"Oh, I thought for a moment or two that I did, but it was reality. Garay escaped through the open window, and, on the lock of the third drawer, were scratches that he left where he had been working with a sharp tool. Come, Tayoga, and look at them."

The two went into the house. Robert lighted a lamp for better light, and Tayoga knelt before the drawer, giving it a long and close examination.

"Garay is a very clever man," he said at last, "much cleverer, perhaps, than we gave him the credit of being."

"I think so too," said Robert.

"As events show, he came into this house to obtain the papers in this drawer, and you and I feel quite certain that those papers concern you. And as you saw him and the slaver together, it indicates that they have some plot against you, what I know not. But the papers here have much to do with it."

"Do you think I should speak of it to Master Jacobus and Mr. Hardy now?"

"I think not, Dagaeoga. Whatever is the mystery about you it is evident that they do not wish to tell you of it yet. So, being what you are, you will not ask them, but wait until such time as they see fit. I think these scratches on the lock were made by the sharp point of a hunting knife. Garay did not succeed in opening it, though it is likely that he would have done so if you had not interrupted him."

"When he saw me he was gone like a flash. I did not know a man could skip through a window with so much celerity."

"One has to be skillful at such things to carry on the trade of a spy. That is why he could have opened this lock, large and strong as it is, with the point of his hunting knife had he been allowed time, and that is why he flew through the window like a bird when you came upon him."

He examined the window, and then laughed a little.

"But he did not go without leaving further proof of himself," he said. "Here on the sill is the faintest trace of blood where he bruised his hand or wrist in his rapid flight."

"Suppose you try to trail him, Tayoga. I believe you could find out which way he went, even here in Albany. The men will talk in there a long time, and won't miss us. There's a fair moon."

"I will try," said Tayoga in his precise fashion. "First we will look at the ground under the window."

They went outside and the Onondaga examined the grass beneath it, the drop being five or six feet.

"As he had to come down hard, he ought to have left traces," said Robert.

"So he did, Dagaeoga. I find several imprints, and there also are two or three drops of blood, showing that he scratched his hand considerably when he went through