ll it then?" demanded the headquarters detective.

"Well, I think he was looking for something in the cigarettes--and--he
found it."

"What do you mean?" asked Dr. Warren.

"Wait. Maybe I can show you."

Colonel Ashley carefully gathered up all the cigarettes in the cell, a
number of them being perfect. With them, and the black butts, as well
as the broken paper tubes, he moved over to the small table in the
cell, and spread them out.

Donovan reached under the colonel's arm and broke open one of the whole
cigarettes. "I don't see--" he began. "For the love of Mike look at
this!" he suddenly exclaimed. "There's a needle in this dope stick!"

"And, if you value your life don't touch it!" cried the colonel.
"That's what I was looking for! Don't so much as scratch yourself the
hundredth part of an inch or-- Well, you saw Singa Phut," he ended
grimly.

"Poisoned needle, Colonel?" asked Dr. Warren, as he shoved the
cigarette Donovan had broken toward the middle of the table.

"That's what I suspect. If we had a cat now or a rat--"

"Easy enough to get a rat," interposed the warden. "There's always
some of the beasts in the traps we set about. We catch 'em alive. I
don't like poison. Here, Riley, go and see if you can find a rat in
one of the traps. What you going to do, Colonel? Try it on him?"

"If you have one, yes. You get my idea, I guess. Some one of Singa
Phut's Indian friends, knowing he would rather go out this way than pay
the penalty of his crime, brought in a package of his favorite
cigarettes.

"In two, three, or in perhaps more of the 'dope sticks,' as my friend
Donovan calls them, he shoved a fine needle, the tip of which was
dipped in some swift, subtle Indian poison, the secret of which these
two alone, perhaps, knew.

"With the cigarettes in his possession it was easy enough for Singa
Phut to smoke some and extract a needle from another. It was probably
marked in some secret way. More than one needle was sent to guard
against failure. But the first one must have worked. I'd like to find
it."

"I'll have the cell swept for you," promised the warden as his deputy
went off to look for a rat. A keeper was summoned with a broom, and
brushed out the cell. It did not take long, for it was very clean.
Most of the debris was cigarette ash and scraps of paper and tobacco.
And it was in this debris, carefully poked over with a lead pencil,
that a needle was found.

Colonel Ashl