ow, farther apart. Stangeist was no fool--not the fool that
he would appear to be for keeping a document like that, once he had had
the temerity to execute it, in his own safe; for, in a day or two, the
Tocsin had hinted at this, after holding it over the heads of Australian
Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane again to drive the force of it a little
deeper home, he would undoubtedly destroy it--and the SUPPOSITION that
it was still in existence would have equally the same effect on the
minds of the other three! Stangeist was certainly alive to the peril
that he ran with such a thing in his possession, only the peril had not
appealed to him as imminent either from the three thugs with whom he had
allied himself, or, much less, from any one else, that was all.

Jimmie Dale halted by a low, ornamental stone fence, some three feet
high, and stood there for a moment, glancing about him. This was
Stangeist's house--he could just make out the building as it loomed up a
shadowy, irregular shape, perhaps two hundred yards back from the fence.
The house was quite dark, not a light showed in any window. Jimmie Dale
sat down casually on the fence, looked carefully again up and down
the road--then, swinging his legs over, quick now in every action, he
dropped to the other side, and stole silently across the grass to the
rear of the house.

Here he stopped again, reached up to a window that was about on a level
with his shoulders, and tested its fastenings. The window--it was the
window of Stangeist's private sanctum, according to the plan in
her letter--was securely locked. Jimmie Dale's hands went into his
pocket--and the black silk mask was slipped over his face. He listened
intently--then a little steel instrument began to gnaw like a rat.

A minute passed--two of them. Again Jimmie Dale listened. There was not
a sound save the night sounds--the light breeze whispering through
the branches of the trees; the far-off rumble of a train; the whir of
insects; the hoarse croaking of a frog from some near-by creek or pond.
The window sash was raised an inch, another, and gradually to the top.
Like a shadow, Jimmie Dale pulled himself up to the sill, and, poised
there, his hand parted the heavy portieres that hung within. It was too
dark to distinguish even a single object in the room. He lowered himself
to the floor, and slipped cautiously between the portieres.

From somewhere in the house, a clock began to strike. Jimmie Dale
counted t