trator. There is a certain vicious delight in brutally
smashing a sullen, helpless prisoner in the face; and the "third
degree" is not officially in existence.

Red Haney was submitted to the "third degree." His argument that he
found the diamonds, and that having found them they were his until
the proper owner appeared, was futile. Ten minutes after having
passed into a room where sat Chief Arkwright, of the Mulberry Street
force, and three of his men, and Steven Birnes, of the Birnes
Detective Agency, Haney remembered that he hadn't found the diamonds
at all--somebody had given them to him.

"Who gave them to you?" demanded the chief.

"I don't know the guy's name, Boss," Haney replied humbly.

"This is to remind you of it."

Haney found himself sprawling on the floor, and looked up, with a
pleading, piteous expression. His eyes were still red and bleary,
his motley face shot with purple, and the fumes of the liquor still
clouded his brain. The chief stood above him with clenched fist.

"On the level, Boss, I don't know," he whined.

"Get up!" commanded the chief. Haney struggled to his feet and
dropped into his chair. "What does he look like--this man who gave
them to you? Where did you meet him? _Why_ did he give them to
you?"

"Now, Boss, I'm goin' to give you the straight goods," Haney pleaded.
"Don't hit me any more an' I'll tell you all I know about it."

The chief sat down again with scowling face. Haney drew a long
breath of relief.

"He's a little, skinny feller, Boss," the prisoner went on to
explain, the while he thoughtfully caressed his jaw. "I meets him
out here in a little town called Willow Creek, me havin' swung off a
freight there to git somethin' to eat. He's just got a couple of
handouts an' he passes one to me, an' we gits to talkin'. He gits to
tellin' me somethin' about a nutty old gazebo who lives in the next
town, which he had just left. This old bazoo, he says, has a hatful
o' diamonds up there, but they ain't polished or nothin' an' he's
there by hisself, an' is old an' simple, an' it's findin' money, he
says, to go over an' take 'em away from him. He reckoned there must
'a' been a thousan' dollars' worth altogether.

"Well, he puts the proposition to me," Haney continued
circumstantially, "an' I falls for it. We're to go over, an' I'm to
pipe it all off to see it's all right, then I'm to sort o' hang aroun'
an' keep watch while he goes in an' gives the old nut