four men stared with the helpless rage, the abandoned suffering of
snared animals.

CHAPTER IV

GARTH BUYS A BOUTONNIERE

Garth wondered if relief would ever come. He was afraid that the slip of
frayed white paper must have gone astray. Otherwise, it seemed to him,
it would have brought help even before he had sounded his shrill alarm.

He glanced at Nora. She had placed her hand on his arm. She gazed at the
open door.

"I thought I heard--"

Then Garth heard, too--a tramping in the house, a struggle outside the
door, a voice whose roar betrayed excitement and triumph.

"Where's Garth?"

The door filled with men in uniform.

Nora covered her face with her hands and turned away. With a start Garth
grasped the reason. Planning vaguely, he arose and leaned over the
prostrate figure of George. The man breathed. The wound was in the
shoulder and appeared of little real consequence. He straightened to
find the inspector standing over him with a look of pleasure. It hurt
Garth to think of that expression's vanishing for one of unbelief and
revolt.

"This fellow will stand his trial," he said.

He added gently:

"For the murder of Joe Kridel. It was here, you know."

The inspector puffed.

"Garth, I'm proud of you."

His eye caught the figure of Nora, crouched against the safe. His voice
grew hard and business-like.

"Bring that woman here."

Slim, bound and at the door, laughed.

Garth grasped the inspector's arm.

"Don't," he said. "Don't bother about her. Let her go."

But the inspector strode to the safe, raised Nora, and drew her hands
from her face.

He gasped and leaned heavily against the divan. All at once he appeared
old.

Garth sprang to his side. He knew the inspector must not speak now.

"I'll tell you," he cried. "You have to thank Nora as much as me."

He glanced at the girl.

"That is, we put it over together. It was a winning combination, but we
didn't have the nerve to put you wise."

The color rushed back to Nora's cheeks, but the inspector's face did not
alter. He looked doubtfully from one to the other. At last he seemed to
gather his emotions in a volley of wrath for Garth.

"You dragged a woman in this! You ought to be horsewhipped. Dragging my
daughter into this hell!"

Garth took the girl's hand.

"Cheer up, chief," he said, "because if you and she would only let me
I'd drag her into a lot worse than that."

He turned to her anxiously. There were tears