ace and over her shoulders, were unmistakable.

"His daughter." De Boer was chuckling. "The little Jetta."

* * * * *

All this had happened in certainly no more than five minutes. I
realized that no alarm had been raised: the bandits had managed it all
with reasonable quiet.

There were six of the bandits here, and De Boer, who towered over us
all. I saw him now as a swaggering giant of thirty-odd, with a
heavy-set smooth-shaved, handsome face.

He held Jetta off. "Damn, how you have grown, Jetta."

Someone said, "She knows too much."

And someone else, "We will take her with us. If you leave her here, De
Boer--"

"Why should I leave her? Why? Leave her--for Perona?"

Then I think that for the first time Jetta saw her father's body lying
sprawled on the path. She cried, "Philip!" Then she half turned and
murmured: "Father!"

She wavered, almost falling. "Father--" She went down, fainting,
falling half against me and against De Boer, who caught her slight
body in his arms.

"Come, we'll get back. Drag him!"

"But you can't carry that girl out like that, De Boer."

"Into the house: there is an open door. Hans, go out and bring the car
around to this side. Give me the cloaks. There is no alarm yet."

De Boer chuckled again. "Perona was nice to keep the police off this
street to-night!"

We went into the kitchen. An auto-car, which to the village people
might have been there on Spawn's mining business, slid quietly up to
the side entrance. A cloak was thrown over Jetta. She was carried like
a sack and put into the car.

I suddenly found an opportunity to break loose. I leaped and struck
one of the men. But the others were too quickly on me. The kitchen
table went over with a crash.

Then something struck me on the back of the head: I think it was the
handle of De Boer's great knife. The kitchen and the men struggling
with me faded. I went into a roaring blackness.

CHAPTER XI

_Aboard the Bandit Flyer_

I was dimly conscious of being inside the cubby of the car, with
bandits sitting over me. The car was rolling through the village
streets. Ascending. We must be heading for Spawn's mine. I thought of
Jetta. Then I heard her voice and felt her stir beside me.

The roaring in my head made everything dreamlike. I sank half into
unconsciousness again. It seemed an endless interval, with only the
muttering hiss of the car's mechanism and the confused murmurs of the
ba