" inquired the doctor, a deep concern expressed in his tone.

"Nope," Johnny smiled. "But I'm afraid the rascal's ripped a hole in one
of my moose-hide sacks. The gold is leaking out."

"Hang the gold!" ejaculated the doctor. "Let it go. It's done its
part--saved your life. An armor of gold! I'd say that's some class!"

"That's all right," said Johnny, still keeping an eye out for other
assailants. "But sentiment won't buy biscuits and honey for starving
children. Gold will. Give us a hand at stopping the leak."

"Go easy," admonished the doctor, "you'll give the whole thing away."

They worked cautiously, revealing nothing to a possible prying eye. When
the task was completed, Johnny stooped to pick up the hilt of the broken
blade. He turned it over and over in his hand, regarding it curiously.

"Oriental, all right," he murmured. "I wonder if those little rascals
could have beaten us here."

"Come on," exclaimed the doctor impatiently, "this is no place for
wondering. I'm for a safe place inside somewhere."

A few turns brought them to Red Cross headquarters, and to one of the big
surprises of Johnny's rather adventurous life. He had hardly crossed the
threshold when his lips framed the word:

"Mazie!"

Could he believe his eyes? Yes, there she was, the girl chum of his
boyhood days, the girl who had played tennis and baseball with him, who
had hiked miles upon miles with him, who swam the sweeping Ohio river with
him. The girl who, in Chicago, having tried to locate him, had come near
to losing her life in a submarine.

"Mazie! Mazie!" he whispered. Then, "How did you come here?"

"By boat, of course," smiled Mazie. "How'd you think?" She took both his
hands in hers.

"But, Mazie, this is a man's place. It's dangerous. Besides, what--"

"What's my business? Well, you see, I'm your agent. I'm going to spend all
that splendid gold you've been digging to help the orphans. I'm 'M.' It
was I who did all that frantic wireless stuff. Did you get it?"

"I did," smiled Johnny, "and if I'd known it was you I would have come on
by wireless."

"But now," he said, after a moment's reflection, "as Jerry the Rat would
say, 'Wot's de lay?'"

Mazie sighed. "Honest, Johnny, have you the gold? Because if you haven't,
it's 'Home, James,' for me. These Russians are the most suspicious people!
They've threatened to put me aboard ship twenty times because I wasn't
making good. I wasn't feeding anybody, as I have said I w