d. "Take no chances of having some one
walk in on us without warning, me boy."

The key was turned in the lock.

There was a bed, a chair, and a washstand in the room. The floor was
uncarpeted and the walls unpapered.

"It's a poor sort of a hole you're cooped in, Felipe," observed the
visitor, flinging off his hat and unbuttoning his overcoat.

"Paugh! It is vile!" exclaimed the boy, with an expression of disgust.
"But here you say they will not look to find me. It was here you brought
me, and here I have remained, only sneaking out at night to buy food.
Tell me the truth, Senor Hagan, are the police still looking for me?"

"It's your life you can bet on it, me lad. Frank Merriwell has them
rubbering for you, and it's myself who has been watched and shadowed all
the time since the night we were pinched. If he had anything good and
sufficient against me, Merriwell would have me nabbed in a jiffy."

"You're sure the officers did not follow you here?"

"Trust Bantry Hagan," laughed the Irishman. "I took good care of that. I
fooled the plain-clothes chap who was following me round, gave him the
slip, and then came to see ye. Lucky for us I had a pull with one of the
bluecoats the night of the raid at Worden's. It would have been easy
for me to get assistance in ducking that night; but I wouldn't go
without ye, and you had the irons on. It looked bad."

"The handcuffs are yet to be made that will hold those hands, Senor
Hagan," said Felipe, with a laugh.

"Sure you made me wink when you slipped your hands out of them slick and
easy. Then it was not so hard to bribe the police to let us both slip
away in the darkness as they marched the prisoners downstairs and out
through the passage. At that we could not have done it only for my pull
with Riley. It's surprised Mr. Merriwell must have been in the morning
when he learned that neither of us had been locked up."

"Fiends destroy him!" cried the boy. "How I hate him! I would love to
kill him!"

"It's that thing ye'd better not do, unless you want to ruin your
prospect of ever handling any of the money he is making from that mine."

"I failed to frighten him that night when I had him with my knife at his
throat. He told me I would not kill him, and I am sure he believed it."

"Oh, he's a nervy lad, all right," nodded Hagan. "Del Norte found that
out. If he had lived----"

There was a step outside; a sharp knock on the door.

Felipe leaped back toward the window,