Kitabı oku: «The Making of Bobby Burnit», sayfa 14

“It is not Mr. Stone’s habit to go to other people,” bluffed Sharpe, growing somewhat nervous; for it was one of Stone’s traits not to forgive the failure of a mission. He had no use for extenuating circumstances, He never looked at anything in this world but results.

Bobby took down the receiver of his house telephone.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Jolter, please,” said he.

Sharpe rose to go.

“Just wait a moment, Mr. Sharpe,” said Bobby peremptorily, and Sharpe stopped. “Jolter,” he directed crisply, turning again to the ’phone, “kindly step into my office, will you?”

A moment later, while Sharpe stood wondering, Jolter came in, and grinned as he noted Bobby’s visitor.

“Mr. Jolter,” asked Bobby, “have we a good portrait of Mr. Sharpe?”

Jolter, still grinning, stated that they had.

“Have a three-column half-tone made of it for this evening’s Bulletin.”

Sharpe fairly spluttered.

“Mr. Burnit, if you print my picture in the Bulletin connected with anything derogatory, I’ll – I’ll – ”

Bobby waited politely for a moment.

“Go ahead, Mr. Sharpe,” said he. “I’m interested to know just what you will do, because we’re going to print the picture, connected with something quite derogatory. Now finish your threat.”

Sharpe gazed at him a moment, speechless with rage, and then stamped from the office.

Jolter, quietly chuckling, turned to Bobby.

“I guess you’ll do,” he commented. “If you last long enough you’ll win.”

“Thanks,” said Bobby dryly, and then he smiled. “Say, Jolter,” he added, “it’s bully fun being angry. I’m just beginning to realize what I have been missing all these years. Go ahead with Sharpe’s picture and print anything you please about him. I guess you can secure enough material without going out of the office, and if you can’t I’ll supply you with some.”

Jolter looked at his watch and hurried for the door. Minutes were precious if he wanted to get that Sharpe cut made in time for the afternoon edition. At the door, however, he turned a bit anxiously.

“I suppose you carry a gun, don’t you?”

“By no means,” said Bobby. “Never owned one.”

“I’d advise you to get a good one at once,” and Jolter hurried away.

That evening’s edition of the Bulletin contained a beautiful half-tone of Mr. Sharpe. Above it was printed: “The Bulletin’s Rogues’ Gallery,” and beneath was the caption: “Hadn’t this man better go, too?”

CHAPTER XXIV
EDITOR BURNIT DISCOVERS THAT HE IS FIGHTING AN ENTIRE CITY INSTEAD OF ONE MAN

At four o’clock of that same day Mr. Brown came in, and Mr. Brown was grinning. In the last three days a grin had become the trade-mark of the office, for the staff of the Bulletin was enjoying itself as never before in all its history.

“Stone’s in my office,” said Brown. “Wants to see you.”

Bobby was interestedly leafing over the pages of the Bulletin. He looked leisurely at his watch and yawned.

“Tell Mr. Stone that I am busy, but that I will receive him in fifteen minutes,” he directed, whereupon Mr. Brown, appreciating the joke, grinned still more expansively and withdrew.

Bobby, as calmly as he could, went on with his perusal of the Bulletin. To deny that he was somewhat tense over the coming interview would be foolish. Never had a quarter of an hour dragged so slowly, but he waited it out, with five minutes more on top of it, and then he telephoned to Brown to know if Stone was still there. He was relieved to find that he was.

“Tell him to come in,” he ordered.

If Stone was inwardly fuming when he entered the room he gave no indication of it. His heavy face bore only his habitually sullen expression, his heavy-lidded eyes bore only their usual somberness, his heavy brow had in it no crease other than those that time had graven there. With the deliberateness peculiar to him he planted his heavy body in a big arm-chair opposite to Bobby, without removing his hat.

“I don’t believe in beating around the bush, Mr. Burnit,” said he, with a glance over his shoulder to make sure that the door was closed. “Of course you’re after something. What do you want?”

Bobby looked at him in wonder. He had heard much of Stone’s bluntness, and now he was fascinated by it. Nevertheless, he did not forget his own viewpoint.

“Oh, I don’t want much,” he observed pleasantly, “only just your scalp; yours and the scalps of a few others who gave me my education, from Silas Trimmer up and down. I think one of the things that aggravated me most was the recent elevation of Trimmer to the chairmanship of your waterworks commission. Trivial as it was, this probably had as much to do with my sudden determination to wipe you out, as your having the Brightlight’s poles removed from Market Street.”

Stone laid a heavy hand easily upon Bobby’s desk. It was a strong hand, a big hand, brown and hairy, and from the third pudgy finger glowed a huge diamond.

“As far as Trimmer is concerned,” said he, quite undisturbed, “you can have his head any minute. He’s a mutt.”

“You don’t need to give me Mr. Trimmer’s head,” replied Bobby, quite as calmly. “I intend to get that myself.”

“And as for the Brightlight,” continued Stone as if he had not been interrupted, “I sent Sharpe over to see you about that this morning. I think we can fix it so that you can get back your two hundred and fifty thousand. The deal’s been worth a lot more than that to the Consolidated.”

“No doubt,” agreed Bobby. “However, I’m not looking, at the present moment, for a sop to the Brightlight Company. It will be time enough for that when I have forced the Consolidated into the hands of a receiver.”

Stone looked at Bobby thoughtfully between narrowed eyelids.

“Look here, young fellow,” said he presently. “Now, you take it from me, and I have been through the mill, that there ain’t any use holding a grouch. The mere doing damage don’t get you anything unless it’s to whip somebody else into line with a warning. I take it that this ain’t what you’re trying to do. You think you’re simply playing a grouch game, table stakes; but if you’ll simmer down you’ll find you’ve got a price. Now, I’d rather have you with me than against me. If you’ll just say what you want I’ll get it for you if it’s in reach. But don’t froth. I’ve cleaned up as much money as your daddy did, just by keeping my temper.”

“I’m going to keep mine, too,” Bobby informed him quite cheerfully. “I have just found that I have one, and I like it.”

Stone brushed this triviality aside with a wave of his heavy hand.

“Quit kidding,” he said, “and come out with it. I see you’re no piker, anyhow. You’re playing for big game. What is it you want?”

“As I said before, not very much,” declared Bobby. “I only want to grind your machine into powder. I want to dig up the rotten municipal control of this city, root and branch. I want to ferret out every bit of crookedness in which you have been concerned, and every bit that you have caused. I want to uncover every man, high or low, for just what he is, and I don’t care how well protected he is nor how shining his reputation, if he’s concerned in a crooked deal I’m going after him – ”

“There won’t be many of us left,” Stone interrupted with a smile.

“ – I want to get back some of the money you have stolen from this city,” continued Bobby; “and I want, last of all, to drive you out of this town for good.”

Stone rose with a sigh.

“This is the only chance I’ll give you to climb in with the music,” he rumbled. “I’ve kept off three days, figuring out where you were leading to and what you were after. Now, last of all, what will you take to call it off?”

“I have told you the price,” said Bobby.

“Then you’re looking for trouble and you must have it, eh?”

“I suppose I must.”

“Then you’ll get it,” and without the sign of a frown upon his brow Mr. Stone left the office.

The next morning things began to happen. The First National Bank called up the business office of the Bulletin and ordered its advertisement discontinued. Not content alone with that, President De Graff called up Bobby personally, and in a very cold and dignified voice told him that the First National was compelled to withdraw its patronage on account of the undignified personal attacks in which the Bulletin was indulging. Bobby whistled softly. He knew De Graff quite well; they were, in fact, upon most intimate terms, socially.

“I should think, De Graff,” Bobby remonstrated, “that of all people the banks should be glad to have all this crookedness rooted out of the city. As a matter of fact, I intended shortly to ask your coöperation in the formation of a citizens’ committee to insure honest politics.”

“I really could not take any active part in such a movement, Mr. Burnit,” returned De Graff, still more coldly. “The conservatism necessary to my position forbids my connection with any sensational publicity whatsoever.”

An hour later, Crone, the advertising manager, came up to Bobby very much worried, to report that not only the First National but the Second Market Bank had stopped their advertising, as had Trimmer and Company, and another of the leading dry-goods firms.

“Of course,” said Crone, “your editorial policy is your own, but I’m afraid that it is going to be ruinous to your advertising.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” admitted Bobby dryly, and that was all the satisfaction he gave Crone; but inwardly he was somewhat disturbed.

He had not thought of the potency of this line of attack. While he knew nothing of the newspaper business, he had already made sure that the profit was in the advertising. He sent for Jolter.

“Ben,” he asked, “what is the connection between the First National and the Second Market Banks and Sam Stone?”

“Money,” said the managing editor promptly. “Both banks are depositories of city funds.”

“I see,” said Bobby slowly. “Do any other banks enjoy this patronage?”

“The Merchants’ and the Planters’ and Traders’ hold the county funds, which are equally at Stone’s disposal.”

Bobby heard this news in silence, and Jolter, after looking at him narrowly for a moment, added:

“I’ll tell you something else. Not one of the four banks pays to the city or the county one penny of interest on these deposits. This is well known to the newspapers, but none of them has dared use it.”

“Go after them,” said Bobby.

“Moreover, it is strongly suspected that the banks pay interest privately to Stone, through a small and select ring in the court-house and in the city hall.”

“Go after them.”

“I suppose you know the men who will be involved in this,” said Jolter.

“Some of my best friends, I expect,” said Bobby.

“And some of the most influential citizens in this town,” retorted Jolter. “They can ruin the Bulletin. They could ruin any business.”

“The thing’s crooked, isn’t it?” demanded Bobby.

“As a dog’s hind leg.”

“Go after them, Jolter!” Bobby reiterated. Then he laughed aloud. “De Graff just telephoned me that ‘the conservatism of his position forbids him to take part in any sensational publicity whatsoever.’”

Comment other than a chuckle was superfluous from either one of them, and Jolter departed to the city editor’s room, to bring joy to the heart of the staff.

It was “Bugs” Roach who scented the far-reaching odor of this move with the greatest joy.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” he delightedly commented. “A grand jury investigation. Oh, listen to the band!”

Before noon the Merchants’ and the Planters’ and Traders’ Banks had withdrawn their advertisements.

At about the same hour a particularly atrocious murder was committed in one of the suburbs. Up in the reporters’ room of the police station, Thomas, of the Bulletin, and Graham, of the Chronicle, were indulging in a quiet game of whist with two of the morning newspaper boys, when a roundsman stepped to the door and called Graham out. Graham came back a moment later after his coat, with such studied nonchalance that the other boys, eternally suspicious as police reporters grow to be, looked at him narrowly, and Thomas asked him, also with studied nonchalance:

“The candy-store girl, or the one in the laundry office?”

“Business, young fellow, business,” returned Graham loftily. “I guess the Chronicle knows when it has a good man. I’m called into the office to save the paper. They’re sending a cub down to cover the afternoon. Don’t scoop him, old man.”

“Not unless I get a chance,” promised Thomas, but after Graham had gone he went down to the desk and, still unsatisfied, asked:

“Anything doing, Lieut.?”

“Dead as a door-nail,” replied the lieutenant, and Thomas, still with an instinct that something was wrong, still sensitive to a certain suppressed tingling excitement about the very atmosphere of the place, went slowly back to the reporters’ room, where he spent a worried half-hour.

The noonday edition of the Chronicle carried, in the identical columns devoted in the Bulletin to a further attack on Stone, a lurid account of the big murder; and the Bulletin had not a line of it! A sharp call from Brown to Thomas, at central police, apprised the latter that he had been “scooped,” and brought out the facts in the case. Thomas hurried down-stairs and bitterly upbraided Lieutenant Casper.

“Look here, you Thomas,” snapped Casper; “you Bulletin guys have been too fresh around here for a long time.”

In Casper’s eyes – Casper with whom he had always been on cordial joking terms – he saw cruel implacability, and, furious, he knew himself to be “in” for that most wearing of all newspaper jobs – “doing police” for a paper that was “in bad” with the administration. He needed no one to tell him the cause. At three-thirty, Thomas, and Camden, who was doing the city hall, and Greenleaf Whittier Squiggs, who was subbing for the day on the courts, appeared before Jim Brown in an agonized body. Thomas had been scooped on the big murder, Camden and G. W. Squiggs had been scooped, at the city hall and the county building, on the only items worth while, and they were all at white heat; though it was a great consolation to Squiggs, after all, to find himself in such distinguished company.

Brown heard them in silence, and with great solemnity conducted them across the hall to Jolter, who also heard them in silence and conducted them into the adjoining room to Bobby. Here Jolter stood back and eyed young Mr. Burnit with great interest as his two experienced veterans and his ambitious youngster poured forth their several tales of woe. Bobby, as it became him to be, was much disturbed.

“How’s the circulation of the Bulletin?” he asked of Jolter.

“Five times what it ever was in its history,” responded Jolter.

“Do you suppose we can hold it?”

“Possibly.”

“How much does a scoop amount to?”

“Well,” confessed Jolter, with his eyes twinkling, “I hate to tell you before the boys, but my own opinion is that we know it and the Chronicle knows it and Stone knows it, but day after to-morrow the public couldn’t tell you on its sacred oath whether it read the first account of the murder in the Bulletin or in the Chronicle.”

Bobby heaved a sigh of relief.

“I always had the impression that a ‘beat’ meant the death, cortège and cremation of the newspaper that fell behind in the race,” he smiled. “Boys, I’m afraid you’ll have to stand it for a while. Do the best you can and get beaten as little as possible. By the way, Jolter, I want to see you a minute,” and the mournful delegation of three, no whit less mournful because they had been assured that they would not be held accountable for being scooped, filed out.

“What’s the connection,” demanded Bobby, the minute they were alone, “between the police department and Sam Stone?”

“Money!” replied Jolter. “Chief of Police Cooley is in reality chief collector. The police graft is one of the richest Stone has. The rake-off from saloons that are supposed to close at one and from crooked gambling joints and illegal resorts of various kinds, amounts, I suppose, to not less than ten to fifteen thousand dollars a week. Of course, the patrolmen get some, but the bulk of it goes to Cooley, who was appointed by Stone, and the biggest slice of all goes to the Boss.”

“Go after Cooley,” said Bobby. Then suddenly he struck his fist upon the desk. “Great Heavens, man!” he exclaimed. “At the end of every avenue and street and alley that I turn down with the Bulletin I find an open sewer.”

“The town is pretty well supplied,” admitted Jolter. “How do you feel now about your policy?”

“Pretty well staggered,” confessed Bobby; “but we’re going through with the thing just the same.”

“It’s a man’s-size job,” declared Jolter; “but if you get away with it the Bulletin will be the best-paying piece of newspaper property west of New York.”

“Not the way the advertising’s going,” said Bobby, shaking his head and consulting a list on his desk. “Where has Stone a hold on the dry-goods firm of Rolands and Crawford?”

“They built out circular show-windows, all around their big block, and these extend illegally upon two feet of the sidewalk.”

“And how about the Ebony Jewel Coal Company?”

“They have been practically allowed to close up Second Street, from Water to Canal, for a dump.”

Bobby sighed hopelessly.

“We can’t fight everybody in town,” he complained.

“Yes, but we can!” exclaimed Jolter with a sudden fire that surprised Bobby, since it was the first the managing editor displayed. “Don’t weaken, Burnit! I’m with you in this thing, heart and soul! If we can hold out until next election we will sweep everything before us.”

“We will hold out!” declared Bobby.

“I am so sure of it that I’ll stand treat,” assented Mr. Jolter with vast enthusiasm, and over an old oak table, in a quiet place, Mr. Jolter and Mr. Burnit, having found the sand in each other’s craws, cemented a pretty strong liking.

CHAPTER XXV
AN EXCITING GAME OF TIT FOR TAT WITH HIRED THUGS

The Bulletin, continuing its warfare upon Stone and every one who supported him, hit upon names that had never before been mentioned but in terms of the highest respect, and divers and sundry complacent gentlemen who attended church quite regularly began to look for a cyclone cellar. They were compromised with Stone and they could not placate Bobby. The four banks that had withdrawn their advertisements, after a hasty conference with Stone put them back again the first day their names were mentioned. The business department of the Bulletin cheerfully accepted those advertisements at the increased rate justified by the Bulletin’s increased circulation; but the editorial department just as cheerfully kept castigating the erring conservators of the public money, and the advertisements disappeared again.

Bobby’s days now were beset from a hundred quarters with agonized appeals to change his policy. This man and that man and the other man high in commercial and social and political circles came to him with all sorts of pressure, and even Payne Winthrop and Nick Allstyne, two of his particular cronies of the Idlers’, not being able to catch him at the club any more, came up to his office.

“This won’t do, old man,” protested Payne; “we’re missing you at billiards and bridge whist, but your refusal to take part in the coming polo tourney was the last straw. You’re getting to be a regular plebe.”

“I am a plebe,” admitted Bobby. “What’s the use to deny it? My father was a plebe. He came off the farm with no earthly possessions more valuable than the patches on his trousers. I am one generation from the soil, and since I have turned over a furrow or two, just plain earth smells good to me.”

Both of Bobby’s friends laughed. They liked him too well to take him seriously in this.

“But really,” said Nick, returning to the attack, “the boys at the club were talking over the thing and think this rather bad form, this sort of a fight you’re making. You’re bound to become involved in a nasty controversy.”

“Yes?” inquired Bobby pleasantly. “Watch me become worse involved. More than that, I think I shall come down to the Idlers’, when I get things straightened out here, organize a club league and make you fellows march with banners and torch-lights.”

This being a more hilarious joke than the other the boys laughed quite politely, though Payne Winthrop grew immediately serious again.

“But we can’t lose you, Bobby,” he insisted. “We want you to quit this sort of business and come back again to the old crowd. There are so few of us left, you know, that we’re getting lonesome. Stan Rogers is getting up a glorious hunt and he wants us all to come up to his lodge for a month at least. You should be tired of this by now, anyhow.”

“Not a bit of it,” declared Bobby.

“Oh, of course, you have your money involved,” admitted Payne, “and you must play it through on that account; but I’ll tell you: if you do want to sell I know where I could find a buyer for you at a profit.”

Bobby turned on him like a flash.

“Look here, Payne,” said he. “Where is your interest in this?”

“My interest?” repeated Payne blankly.

“Yes, your interest. What have you to gain by having me sell out?”

“Why, really, Bobby – ” began Payne, thinking to temporize.

“You’re here for that purpose, and must tell me why,” insisted Bobby sternly, tapping his finger on the desk.

“Well, if you must know,” stammered Payne, taken out of himself by sheer force of Bobby’s manner, “my respected and revered – ”

“I see,” said Bobby.

“The – the pater is thinking of entering politics next year, and he rather wants an organ.”

“And Nick, where’s yours?”

“Well,” confessed Nick, with no more force of reservation than had Payne when mastery was used upon him, “mother’s city property and mine, you know, contains some rather tumbledown buildings that are really good for a number of years yet, but which adverse municipal government might – might depreciate in value.”

“Just a minute,” said Bobby, and he sent for Jolter.

“Ben,” he asked, “do you know anything about Mr. Adam Winthrop’s political aspirations?”

“I understand he’s being groomed for governor,” said Jolter.

“Meet his son, Mr. Jolter – Mr. Payne Winthrop. Also Mr. Nick Allstyne. I suppose Mr. Winthrop is to run on Stone’s ticket?” continued Bobby, breaking in upon the formalities as quickly as possible.

“Certainly.”

“Payne,” said Bobby, “if your father wants to talk with me about the Bulletin he must come himself. Jolter, do you know where the Allstyne properties are?”

Jolter looked at Nick and Nick colored.

“That’s rather a blunt question, under the circumstances, Mr. Burnit,” said Jolter, “but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be answered as bluntly. It’s a row of two blocks on the most notorious street of the town, frame shacks that are likely to be the start of a holocaust, any windy night, which will sweep the entire down-town district. They should have been condemned years ago.”

“Nick,” said Bobby, “I’ll give you one month to dispose of that property, because after that length of time I’m going after it.”

This was but a sample. Bobby had at last become suspicious, and as old John Burnit had shrewdly observed in one of his letters: “It hurts to acquire suspiciousness, but it is quite necessary; only don’t overdo it.”

Bobby, however, was in a field where suspiciousness could scarcely be overdone. When any man came to protest or to use influence on Bobby in his fight, Bobby took the bull by the horns, called for Jolter, who was a mine of information upon local affairs, and promptly found out the reason for that man’s interest; whereupon he either warned him off or attacked him, and made an average of ten good, healthy enemies a day. He scared Adam Winthrop out of the political race entirely, he made the Allstynes tear down their fire-traps and erect better-paying and consequently more desirable tenements, and he had De Graff and the other involved bankers “staggering in circles and hoarsely barking,” as “Bugs” Roach put it.

So far, Bobby had been subjected to no personal annoyances, but on the day after his first attack on the chief of police he began to be arrested for breaking the speed laws, and fined the limit, even though he drove his car but eight miles an hour, while his news carriers and his employees were “pinched” upon the most trivial pretexts. Libel suits were brought wherever a merchant or an official had a record clear enough to risk such procedure, and three of these suits were decided against him; whereupon Bobby, finding the money chain which bound certain of the judges to Sam Stone, promptly attacked these members of the judiciary and appealed his cases.

His very name became a red rag to every member of Stone’s crowd; but up to this point no violence had been offered him. One night, however, as he was driving his own car homeward, men on the watch for him stepped out of an alley mouth two blocks above the Burnit residence and strewed the street thickly with sharp-pointed coil springs. One of these caught a tire, and Bobby, always on the alert for the first sign of such accidents, brought his car to a sudden stop, reached down for his tire-wrench and jumped out. Just as he stooped over to examine the tire, some instinct warned him, and he turned quickly to find three men coming upon him from the alley, the nearest one with an uplifted slung-shot. It was with just a glance from the corner of his eye as he turned that Bobby caught the import of the figure towering above him, and then his fine athletic training came in good stead. With a sidewise spring he was out of the sphere of that descending blow, and, swinging with his heavy wrench, caught the fellow a smash upon the temple which laid him unconscious. Before the two other men had time to think, he was upon them and gave one a broken shoulder-blade. The other escaped. There had been no word from any of the three men which might lead to an explanation of this attack, but Bobby needed no explanation; he divined at once the source from which it came, and in the morning he sent for Biff Bates.

“Biff,” said he, “I spoke once about securing some thugs to act as a counter-irritant against Stone, but I have neglected it. How long will it take to get hold of some?”

“Ten minutes, if I wait till dark,” replied Biff. “I can go down to the Blue Star, and for ten iron men apiece can get you as fine a bunch of yeggs as ever beat out a cripple’s brains with his own wooden leg.”

Bobby smiled.

“I don’t want them to go quite that far,” he objected. “Are they men you can depend upon not to sell out to Stone?”

“Just one way,” replied Biff. “The choice line of murderers that hang out down around the levee are half of them sore on Stone, anyhow; but they’re afraid of him, and the only way you can use them is to give ’em enough to get ’em out of town. For ten a throw you can buy them body and soul.”

“I’ll take about four, to start on duty to-night, and stay on duty till they accomplish what I want done,” and Bobby detailed his plan to Biff.

Stone had one peculiarity. Knowing that he had enemies, and those among the most reckless class in the world, he seldom allowed himself to be caught alone; but every night he held counsel with some of his followers at a certain respectable beer-garden where, in the summer-time, a long table in a quiet, half-screened corner was reserved for him and his followers, and in the winter a back room was given up for the same purpose. Here Stone transacted all the real business of his local organization, drinking beer, reviving strange-looking callers, and confining his own remarks to a grunted yes or no, or a brief direction. Every night at about nine-thirty he rose, yawned, and, unattended, walked back through the beer-garden to the alley, where he stood for some five minutes. This was his retreat for uninterrupted thought, and when he came back from it he had the day’s developments summed up and the necessary course of action resolved upon.

On the second night after the attempted assault upon Bobby he had no sooner closed the alley door behind him than a man sprang upon him from either side, a heavy hand was placed over his mouth, and he was dragged to the ground, where a third brawny thug straddled his chest and showed him a long knife.

“See it?” demanded the man as he passed the blade before Stone’s eyes. “It’s hungry. You let ’em clip my brother in stir for a three-stretch when you could have saved him with a grunt, and if I wasn’t workin’ under orders, in half an hour they’d have you on slab six with ice packed around you and a sheet over you. But we’re under orders. We’re part of the reform committee, we are,” and all three of them laughed silently, “and there’s a string of us longer than the Christmas bread-line, all crazy for a piece of this getaway coin. And here’s the little message I got to give you. This time you’re to go free. Next time you’re to have your head beat off. This thuggin’ of peaceable citizens has got to be stopped; see?”

A low whistle from a man stationed at the mouth of the alley interrupted the speech which the man with the knife was enjoying so much, and he sprang from the chest of Stone, who had been struggling vainly all this time. As the man sprang up and started to run, he suddenly whirled and gave Stone a vicious kick upon the hip, and as Stone rose, another man kicked him in the ribs. All three of them ran, and Stone, scrambling to his feet with difficulty, whipped his revolver from his pocket and snapped it. Long disused, however, the trigger stuck, but he took after them on foot in spite of the pain of the two fearful kicks that he had received. Instead of darting straight out of the alley, the men turned in at a small gate at the side of a narrow building on the corner, and slammed the gate behind them. He could hear the drop of the wooden bolt. He knew perfectly that entrance. It was to the littered back yard of a cheap saloon, at the side of which ran a narrow passageway to the street beyond, where street-cars passed every half-minute.

Just as he came furiously up to the gate a policeman darted in at the alley mouth, and, catching the glint of Stone’s revolver, whipped his own. He ran quite fearlessly to Stone, and with a dextrous blow upon the wrist sent the revolver spinning.

“You’re under arrest,” said he.