mmie Dale's lips were curiously thin now. So it was Stangeist! A
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a vengeance! He knew Stangeist--not
personally; not by the reputation Stangeist held, low even as that was,
among his brother members of the profession; but as the man was known
for what he really was among the crooks and criminals of the underworld,
where, in that strange underground exchange, whispered confidences
passed between those whose common enemy was the law, where Larry the Bat
himself was trusted in the innermost circles.

Stangeist was a power in the Bad Lands. There were few among that unholy
community that Stangeist, at one time or another, in one way or another,
had not rescued from the clutches of the law, resorting to any trick or
cunning, but with perjury, that he could handle like the master of
it that he was, employed as the most common weapon of defence for his
clients--provided he were paid well enough for it. The man had become
more than the attorney for the crime world--he had become part of
it. Cunning, shrewd, crafty, conscienceless, cold-blooded--that was
Stangeist.

The form and features of the man pictured themselves in Jimmie Dale's
mind--the six-foot muscular frame, that was invariably clothed in attire
of the most fashionable cut; the thin lips with their oily, plausible
smile, the straight black hair that straggled into pin point, little
black eyes, the dark face with its high cheek bones, which, with the
pronounced aquiline nose and the persistent rumour that he was a
quarter caste, had led the underworld, prejudiced always in favour of a
"monaker," to dub the man the "Indian Chief."

Jimmie Dale laughed again--still unpleasantly. So Stangeist had taken
the plunge at last and branched out into a wider field, had he? Well,
there was nothing surprising in that--except that he had not done it
before! The irony of it lay in the fact that at last he had been TOO
clever, overstepped himself in his own cleverness, that was all. It was
Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane that Stangeist had gathered
around him, the Tocsin had said--and there were none worse in Larry the
Bat's wide range of acquaintanceship than those three. Stangeist had
made himself master of Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane--and
he had driven them a little too hard on the division of the spoils--and
laughed at them, and cracked the whip much after the fashion that the
trainer in the cage handles the growling beas