thousands
of dollars' loss that would follow an attempt to blow the door in."

The last remark was directed quietly at the doubting detective. He had
nothing to say. We stood in awe-struck amazement as the torch slowly,
inexorably, traced a thin line along the edge of the door.

Minute after minute sped by, as the line burned by the blowpipe cut
straight from top to bottom. It seemed hours to me. Was Kennedy going to
slit the whole door and let it fall in with a crash?

No, I could see that even in his cursory examination of the door he had
gained a pretty good knowledge of the location of the bolts imbedded in
the steel. One after another he was cutting clear through and severing
them, as if with a superhuman knife.

What was going on on the other side of the door, I wondered. I could
scarcely imagine the consternation of the gamblers caught in their own
trap.

With a quick motion Kennedy turned off the acetylene and oxygen. The
last bolt had been severed. A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the
once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he
had merely said, "Open Sesame." The robbers' cave yawned before us.

We made a rush up the stairs. Kennedy was first, O'Connor next, and
myself scarcely a step behind, with the rest of O'Connor's men at our
heels.

I think we were all prepared for some sort of gun-play, for the crooks
were desperate characters, and I myself was surprised to encounter
nothing but physical force, which was quickly, overcome.

In the now disordered richness of the rooms, waving his "John Doe"
warrants in one hand and his pistol in the other, O'Connor shouted
"you're all under arrest, gentlemen. If you resist further it will go
hard with you."

Crowded now in one end of the room in speechless amazement was the late
gay party of gamblers, including Senator Danfield himself. They had
reckoned on toying with any chance but this. The pale white face of
DeLong among them was like a spectre, as he stood staring blankly about
and still insanely twisting the roulette wheel before him.

Kennedy advanced toward the table with an ax which he had seized from
one of our men. A well-directed blow shattered the mechanism of the
delicate wheel.

"DeLong," he said, "I'm not going to talk to you like your old professor
at the university, nor like your recent friend, the Frenchman with a
system. This is what you have been up against, my boy. Look."

His forefinger indicated a