f the next house. Clay knelt and lifted it an inch or two very
slowly. He lowered it again and rose.

"I'm a heap obliged to you, Miss," he said in a low voice. "You're a
game little gentleman."

She nodded. "My name is Annie Millikan."

"Mine is Clay Lindsay. I want to come and thank you proper some day."

"I take tickets at Heath's Palace of Wonders two blocks down," she
whispered.

"You'll sure sell me a ticket one of these days," Clay promised.

"Look out for yourself. Don't let 'em get you. Give 'em a chance, and
that gang would croak you sure."

"I'll be around to buy that ticket. Good-night, Miss Annie. Don't you
worry about me."

"You will be careful, won't you?"

"I never threw down on myself yet."

The girl's flippancy broke out again. "Say, lemme know when the
weddin' is and I'll send you a salad bowl," she flashed at him saucily
as he turned to go.

Clay was already busy with the door.

CHAPTER XIV

STARRING AS A SECOND-STORY MAN

Darkness engulfed Clay as he closed the trapdoor overhead. His
exploring feet found each tread of the ladder with the utmost caution.
Near the foot of it he stopped to listen for any sound that might serve
to guide him. None came. The passage was as noiseless as it was dark.

Again he had that sense of cold finger-tips making a keyboard of his
spine. An impulse rose in him to clamber up the ladder to the safety
of the open-skyed roof. He was a son of the wide outdoors. It went
against his gorge to be blotted out of life in this trap like some foul
rodent.

But he trod down the panic and set his will to carry on. He crept
forward along the passage. Every step or two he stopped to listen,
nerves keyed to an acute tension.

A flight of stairs brought him to what he knew must be the second
floor. To him there floated a murmur of sounds. They came vague and
indistinct through a closed door. The room of the voices was on the
left-hand side of the corridor.

He soft-footed it closer, reached the door, and dropped noiselessly to
a knee. A key was in the lock on the outside. With infinite
precaution against rattling he turned it, slid it out, and dropped it
in his coat pocket. His eye fastened to the opening.

Three men were sitting round a table. They were making a bluff at
playing cards, but their attention was focused on a door that evidently
led into another room. Two automatic revolvers were on the table close
to the hands of th