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For just as he pressed his bulk into the recess the man hunt manifested itself. Bursting headlong out of the front of Wallinger’s Hotel came a policeman–doubtlessly the one already seen by Trencher–and just behind the policeman a roughly dressed bearded man, and with these two, at their heels, a jostling impetuous swarm of other men, to be joined instantly by yet more men, who had run round the corner of the hotel from Thirty-ninth Street, instead of passing through its lobby. For the veriest fraction of time they all slowed down, casting about them with their eyes for a trail to follow.

Trencher, looking slantwise to the south, could see them plainly. The foremost members of the hesitating and uncertain group were not sixty feet from him. He forgot to breathe.

Then, all together, half a dozen pointing arms were flung out to the north.

“There he goes, officer, runnin’! See ‘im yonder? See ‘im?”

With a forward surge and a great clatter of feet the hunt was renewed. Past Trencher’s refuge, with never a look this way or that, the policeman, the bearded man, all the rest of them, went pelting along the sidewalk, giving tongue like beagles. He could have put forth his hand and touched some of them as they sped by him. Numbers of foot travellers joined in the tail of the chase. Those who did not join it faced about to watch. Knowing that for a bit he would practically be free of the danger of close scrutiny, Trencher stepped out upon the sidewalk and looking north caught a glimpse of a bent fleeing figure scuttling up Broadway a block and a half beyond.

By this trick he had broken the trail and sent the pack off on a wrong scent. So far so good. He figured the outlook after this fashion: Set upon earning the double fee promised him the deluded darky, as he could tell, was still going at top speed, unconscious of any pursuit. If he continued to maintain his gait, if none tripped him, the probabilities were he would be round the corner in Forty-fifth Street, trying to find a mythical boarding house and a mythical hall boy named Fred, before the foremost of the runners behind overtook and seized him. Then would follow shouts, yells, a babble of accusations, denials of all wrongful intent by the frightened captive and explanations by him to the policeman of his reason for running so hard.

Following on this the chase would double back on its tracks, and at once policemen in numbers, along with volunteers, would be combing the district for the real fugitive. Still, barring the unforeseen, a few minutes must intervene before this neighbourhood search would be getting under way; and meanwhile the real fugitive, calmly enough, was moving along in the rear of the rearmost of those who ran without knowing why they ran. He did not go far though–he dared not go far. Any second the darky might be tackled and thrown by someone on ahead, and besides there might be individuals close at hand who had not joined in the hue and cry, but who in some way had learned that the man so badly wanted wore such-and-such distinguishing garments.

It was because of this latter contingency that Trencher had not tried to slip back into Thirty-ninth Street. That had been his first impulse, but he discarded the thought as it came to him. His mind peopled the vicinity immediately south and east of him with potential enemies. To the north alone, in the wake of the chase, could he count upon a hope of transient security, and that would last only for so long as the negro kept going. He could not get away from the spot–yet. And still it would be the height of recklessness for him, dressed as he was, to linger there. Temporarily he must bide where he was, and in this swarming, bright-as-day place he must find a hiding place from which he could see without being seen, spy without being spied upon or suspected for what he was. Even as he calculated these obstacles he figured a possible way out of the double-ended dilemma, or at any rate he figured his next step toward safety from detection for the moment, and, with continued luck, toward ultimate escape from a perilous spot where now no measure of immunity could be either long-lived or dependable.