This was all that Davids could tell; and after remunerating him for his trouble, Manning left him to finish his preparations for the day.

Here was the very information he wanted, and he had struck the trail again.  Anxious to pursue his journey, Manning invited the chief to breakfast with him; after which, finding he could leave in a very short time, he bade the courteous and valuable officer good-by, and was soon on his way to Minneapolis, there to commence again the trail of the fleeing burglar.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Detective at Bismarck—­Further Traces of the Fugitive—­A Protracted Orgie—­A Jewish Friend of the Burglar in Trouble.

On arriving in Minneapolis, Manning was able to discover without serious difficulty that Duncan, after remaining in that city two days, had purchased a ticket over the Northern Pacific railroad for Bismarck, a thriving town in Dakota.  This information he had been able to gain by a resort to his old method of visiting the houses of ill-fame, and then carelessly exposing Duncan’s photograph to the various inmates, in such a manner as to excite no suspicion of his real errand.  His experience thus far had been that Duncan, either to evade pursuit, to gratify bestial passion, or to endeavor by such excitements to drive away the haunting fear that oppressed him, had invariably sought the companionship of the harlot and the profligate.  Being possessed of plenty of money, it may be imagined that he experienced no difficulty in finding associates willing to minister to his appetites, and to assist him in forgetting the dangers that threatened him, by dissipation and debauchery.  All along his path were strewn these evidences of reckless abandonment, which, while they temporarily enabled him to drown the remembrances of his crime, yet, at the same time, they served most powerfully to point out to his pursuer the road he was traveling.

It appeared, therefore, that my first theories were correct, and that Thomas Duncan was making his way to the far western country, where, beyond the easy and expeditious mode of communication by railroad and telegraph, he would be safe from pursuit.  He was evidently seeking to reach the mining district, where, among men as reckless as himself, he hoped to evade the officers of law.

Manning lost no time in following up the clew he had obtained in Minneapolis, and so, purchasing a ticket for Bismarck, he was soon thundering on his way to the Missouri river.  At Brainerd, at Fargo in Minnesota, and at Jamestown in Dakota, during the time when the train had stopped for some necessary purpose, he had made inquiries, and at each place was rewarded by gleaning some information, however fragmentary, of the fugitive.  He was therefore assured that he was upon the trail, and that unless something unforeseen occurred, he would sooner or later overtake the object of his pursuit.