suicide for you to try to go out the front way now. Follow me; I
have news for you. Step quietly!"

He led the paper-hanger through the back corridor to the open air and
up the outside back stairs to the third floor and into the building.
He tapped lightly on a door and it was opened the merest crack.

"Friends," whispered Billy Getz, and the door opened wide and admitted
them.

The room was the club-room of the Kidders, where they gathered night
after night to play cards and drink illicit whiskey. Green shades over
which were hung heavy curtains protected the windows. A large, round
table stood in the middle of the floor under the gas-lights; a couch
was in one corner of the room; and these, with the chairs and a
formless heap in a far corner, over which a couch-cover was thrown,
constituted all the furniture, except for the iron cuspidors. Here the
young fellows came for their sport, feeling safe from intrusion, for
the possession of whiskey was against the law. There was a fine of
five hundred dollars--one half to the informer--for the misdemeanor of
having whiskey in one's possession, but the Kidders had no fear. They
knew each other.

For the moment the cards were put away and the couch-cover hid the
four cases of Six Star that represented the club's stock of liquor.
The five young men already in the room were sitting around the table.

"Sit down, Detective Gubb," said Billy Getz. "Here we are safe. Here
we may talk freely. And we have something big to talk to-night."

Philo Gubb moved a chair to the table. He had to push one of the
cuspidors aside to make room, and as he pushed it with his foot he saw
an oblong of paper lying in it among the sand and cigar stubs. It was
a Six Star whiskey label. He turned his head from it with his
bird-like twist of the neck and let his eyes rest on Billy Getz.

"We know who dynamited those houses!" said Billy Getz suddenly. "Do
you know Jack Harburger?"

"No," said Philo Gubb. "I don't know him."

"Well, we do," said Billy Getz. "He's the slickest ever. He was the
boss of the gang. Read this!"

He slid a sheet of note-paper across to Philo Gubb, and the detective
read it slowly:--

Billy: Send me five hundred dollars quick. I've got to get
away from here. J. H.

"And we made him our friend," said Billy Getz resentfully. "Why, he
was here the night of the dynamiting--wasn't he, boys?"

"He sure was," said the Kidders.