bushes vomited forth two men, like the
fruit of the Dragon's Teeth, armed with rifles, who barred their way.
Both men were grinning from ear to ear.

"All right, Jesse," said Shad with a laugh. "It's me and the new
forester." He uttered the words with an undeniable accent of contempt.

The armed figures glanced at Peter and disappeared, and Peter and Mr.
Shad Wells went up the steps of the house to a spacious portico. There
was not a human being in sight and the heavy wooden blinds to the lower
floor were tightly shut. Before his guide had even reached the door the
sound of their footsteps had aroused some one within the house, the door
was opened the length of its chain and a face appeared at the aperture.

"Who is it?" asked a male voice.

"Shad Wells and Mr. Nichols, the man from New York."

"Wait a minute," was the reply while the door was immediately shut
again.

Peter glanced around him comparing this strange situation with another
that he remembered, when a real terror had come, a tangible terror in
the shape of a countryside gone mad with blood lust. He smiled toward
the bush where the armed men lay concealed and toward the gate where
the other armed man was standing. It was all so like a situation out of
an _opera bouffe_ of Offenbach.

What he felt now in this strange situation was an intense curiosity to
learn the meaning of it all, to meet the mysterious person around whom
all these preparations centered. Peter had known fear many times, for
fear was in the air for weeks along the Russian front, the fear of
German shells, of poison gas, and of that worst poison of all--Russian
treachery. But that fear was not like this fear, which was intimate,
personal but intangible. He marked it in the scrutiny of the man who
opened the door and of the aged woman who suddenly appeared beside him
in the dim hallway and led him noiselessly up the stair to a lighted
room upon the second floor. At the doorway the woman paused.

"Mr. Nichols, Mr. McGuire," she said, and Peter entered.

CHAPTER IV

THE JOB

The room was full of tobacco smoke, through which Peter dimly made out a
table with an oil lamp, beside which were chairs, a sofa, and beyond, a
steel safe between the windows. As Peter Nichols entered, a man advanced
from a window at the side, the shutter of which was slightly ajar. It
was evident that not content to leave his safety in the hands of those
he had employed to preserve it, he had been wat