out his arms in a wide gesture.

"I've said enough," he growled, "more than enough. You know your duty."
And he gestured toward the door. "Do it!" he finished brusquely.

Peter had already risen, and Stryker unemotionally opened the door for
him.

"I'll stay on duty all night, Mr. McGuire," he said quietly. "I'd advise
you to turn in and get some sleep. You need it."

"Yes. Yes, I will. Thanks, Nichols," said McGuire, following him to the
door and offering a flabby hand. "Don't mind what I've said to-night. I
think we understand each other. Stryker will see that the house is
locked when the young people come up. Keep your men to the mark and take
no chances."

"Good-night."

The remainder of the night, as Mrs. Bergen had predicted, proved
uneventful, and at daylight Peter went to his cabin and tumbled into
bed, too tired to think further of McGuire's visitors--or even of the
man with the black mustache.

The next day he lay abed luxuriously for a while after he had awakened,
but no amount of quiet thinking availed to clarify the mystery. There
were two men, one bearded, interested in watching McGuire, another with
a black mustache, interested in Peter. And so, after wondering again for
some puzzling moments as to how Mrs. Bergen, the housekeeper, had come
to be involved in McGuire's fortunes, he gave the problem up.

Foreseeing difficulties over breakfast at the house, he had arranged to
make his own coffee on a small oil stove which happened to be available,
and so Peter set the pot on to boil and while he dressed turned over in
his mind the possibilities of the future. It seemed quite certain that
the antagonism, whatever its nature, between his employer and the
prowling stranger must come to an issue of some sort almost at once. The
intruder, if he were the sort of man who could inspire terror, would
not remain content merely to prowl fruitlessly about with every danger
of being shot for his pains, and McGuire could hardly remain long in his
present situation without a physical or mental collapse.

Why hadn't McGuire taken flight? Why indeed had he come to Black Rock
House when it seemed that he would have been much safer amongst the
crowds of the city, where he could fall back upon the protection of the
police and their courts for immunity from this kind of persecution?

Pieced together, the phrases his employer had let slip suggested the
thought that he had come to Black Rock to escape publicity in anyth