of Alvin Landon and Chester Haynes were on edge.
Had they peered out of the window less than half an hour earlier they
would have seen the meeting between the lookout and young Jim Buxton.

Mike Murphy had slipped so silently from among them that no one was aware
of his absence when the bumping and crash at the rear were followed by
exclamations and words that were not intelligible. Mrs. Friestone uttered
a faint cry and sank back on her chair. Nora screamed and threw her arms
about her mother's neck.

"They will kill us! What shall we do?" she wailed.

For the moment Alvin and Chester, startled almost as much as their
friends, were mystified. When Chester said:

"That sounds like Mike's voice. Hello, Mike, are you here with us?"

The failure to receive a reply proved that Chester was right. Their
comrade had stolen off and was already in a "shindy" at the rear of the
store.

"He may need our help!" called Alvin, starting for the stairs, with his
chum at his heels. But Nora, who had heard the unguarded words, called in
wild distress:

"Don't leave us! Don't leave us!"

They stopped irresolute. They could not abandon the two, and yet Mike's
life might be in peril.

"Go back to them," whispered Chester. "There's no call for both of us to
stay."

"Better not go down yourself; you know you have no weapon. Let's take a
look."

First of all it was necessary to quiet the daughter and mother, for one
was as much terrified as the other. Alvin hastened into the room.

"We will not leave you," he said, "but we wish to see what we can from
the kitchen window."

"Oh, you may fall out," moaned Nora, scarcely responsible for what she
said. Even in the crisis of a tragedy a vein of comedy will sometimes
intrude itself.

"Have no fear of that," replied Alvin. "I will hold Chester from tumbling
out and he will do the same for me. Pray, compose yourselves."

During this brief absence Chester had threaded his way past the furniture
in the darkness to the window, out of which he was gazing on a most
interesting moving picture which had vanished when Alvin appeared at his
elbow.

"It made my blood tingle," said Chester. "I was just in time to see a
man, who must have leaped out, running for life with Mike in pursuit. He
had that old gun in one hand--as if it could prove of any earthly use to
him."

"Where are they now?"

"The fellow, after leaping the fence, turned to the right and disappeared
among the shadows."