One--two--three, croaked the siren like a giant hoot-owl calling
in the night.
"Third ward--down around the depot, probably," he heard a voice say
guardedly on the other side of the fence. Another voice, more guarded
even than the first, muttered a reply which Starr could not catch.
Neither voice was recognizable, and the sentence he heard was so obvious
a remark as to be practically meaningless; probably a hundred persons in
town had said "Third ward," when the siren had tooted the number.
At any rate some one was there in the yard of _Las Nuevas_, and it would
not be wise for Starr to attempt getting over the wall. He waited
therefore until he heard careful footsteps moving away; whereupon he
himself stole quietly to the corner, thence down the side wall to the
front of the building, so that he could look across the street to where
the Mexican had revealed himself for a moment in the light of a distant
street lamp.
If the Mexican had been on watch there, he had left his post. In a minute
Starr saw him hurrying down the unused side street, toward the angry glow
that told where the fire had started.
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