Mayfield. Jed and Ken had played football on the first team together
last year.

"Jed," Ken said quickly, "give it up! Don't go through with this!"

"Shut up!" Jed snarled. He reined the horse nearer, threatening Ken with
the thrashing front legs.

When Jed's companions arrived, Jed dismounted from the horse.

"Who is it?" a panting voice asked.

A cold panic shot through Ken. He recognized the voice. It was that of
Mr. Tucker himself. The bank official was taking part in the looting of
the warehouse.

The third man, Ken recognized in rising horror, was Mr. Allen, a
next-door neighbor of the Tuckers. He was the town's foremost attorney,
and one of its most prominent citizens.

"We can't let him go," Allen was saying. "Whoever he is, we've got to
get him out of the way."

Mr. Tucker came closer. He gasped in dismay. "It's young Maddox," he
said. "You! What are you doing out this time of night?"

Under any other conditions, the question would have seemed humorous,
coming from whom it did now. But Ken felt no humor; he sensed the
desperate fury in these men.

"Give it up," he repeated quietly. "The lives of fifteen thousand people
depend on this food supply. You have no right to steal an ounce that
doesn't belong to you. I'll never tell what I've seen."

Tucker shook his head in a dazed, uncomprehending manner, as if the
proposition were too fantastic to be considered. "We can't do that," he
said.

"We can't let him go!" Allen repeated.

"You can't expect us to risk murder!"

"There'll be plenty of that before this winter's over!"

"Our lives depend on this food, you know that," Tucker said desperately
to Ken. "You take your share, and we'll all be in this together. Then we
know we'll be safe."

Ken considered, his panic increasing. To refuse might mean his life. If
he could pretend to fall in with them....

"You can't trust him!" Allen raged. "No one is going to be in on this
except us."

Suddenly the lawyer stepped near, his hand raised high in the air.
Before Ken sensed his intention, a heavy club smashed against his head.
His body fell in a crumpled heap on the sidewalk.

* * * * *

It was after 2 a.m. when Professor Maddox awoke with the sensation that
something was vaguely wrong. He sat up in bed and looked out the window
at the starlit sky. He remembered he had left Ken at the university and
had not yet heard him come in.

Quietly he arose from the bed and t