ou at your rascally work, my man."

"Humph!" snorted the ex-foreman. "Who? Those boys?"

"Yes."

"Humph! I wouldn't believe those boys under oath, and you'll make a
huge mistake if you do, Mr. Farnum," continued Josh Owen, hotly.

"Then you deny that you were here, and that you tampered with a sea-valve
last night?" insisted the yard's owner, looking his man keenly in the
eyes.

"I'll deny it with my dying breath," asserted the former foreman, boldly.
"As for those lying boys--"

"Do you believe _this_ can lie?" inquired Mr. Farnum, passing the
accused man a photograph print.

Josh Owen took the print, staring at it hard. In an instant his eyes
began to open as wide as it was possible for them to do. A sickly,
greenish pallor crept into the man's face. Beads of cold perspiration
appeared on his forehead and temples.

"You see, your face shows up very clearly," went on the yard's owner,
in the same cold, crushing voice. "Moreover, it shows you right at one
of the sea-valves, and in the very act of tapping with a hammer. You
didn't know that Benson and Hastings are very fair photographers, did
you?"

"I don't care what they are," cried Owen, in a passionate voice, as
before the print to small bits. "That isn't a photograph of me, even if
it does look like me, and I wasn't here last night. I--"

"Any judge and jury will believe the evidence against you, my man,"
cried Farnum, sternly. "As for the boys, maybe you don't like them,
nor they you. They've reason enough for not liking you. Besides,
they couldn't photograph anything that wasn't here to be photographed."

"Then it was that flash--" began Josh Owen.

He stopped instantly, biting his lips savagely.

"Yes, they took the picture by flashlight, and you've just admitted
remembering the flash that interrupted your rascally labor," exclaimed
Mr. Farnum, triumphantly. "As for the print you've just torn up, Owen,
it doesn't make any difference. There are other copies of it. Now,
my fine fellow, you've been trapped just as nicely as the law requires,
and, in addition, you know you're guilty of the whole thing. Now--"

But Owen leaped up the spiral staircase, shouting:

"I won't be taken alive! I--"

Andrews, O'brien and another workman sprang forward to seize the fellow,
but Mr. Farnum called them back. Josh Owen got down from the platform
deck, and out of the shed in a twinkling.

"Let him go," ordered, the yard's owner. "He won't be