inning
them down.

"I'll get word to the cops," stuttered Crowley, holding his hand to his
battered and bleeding lips.

"Wait till Craig comes to!" protested Mern. "He may want us to hush the
thing. He has been hollering for soft pedal all the time. He seems bad!
Get a doctor!"

The physician who came confirmed Mern's opinion as to the condition of
the field director; Craig himself was querulously emphatic on the point
when he had been brought to consciousness. But he insisted on postponing
consideration of the proper action to take in Latisan's case until he
had time to forget his aches and compose his thoughts.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Early the next morning glaziers, carpenters, and telephone repair men
monopolized the Vose-Mern offices to the exclusion of regular business.
The chief had told his office force to stay away for the day.

He had found one chair that was whole, and he sat and watched the "after
the storm" effect gradually disappear.

Mern's thoughts were as much in disorder as the interior he was
surveying.

Instead of feeling lively enmity in the case of Latisan, he was
admitting to himself that he rather admired the young wildcat from the
woods. At any rate, Latisan had accepted at face value Mern's repeated
dictum that if the other fellow could get Mern while Mern was set on
getting the fellow, there would be no grudges. Latisan's come-back, the
chief reflected, was crude work, but it was characteristically after the
style of the men of the open; and the wreck of an office was less
disastrous than the wreck of a man's prospects and his very soul. Mern
was not a bit of a sentimentalist, but he could see the situation
vaguely from Latisan's standpoint. And he realized that there was still
something behind it all which he had not come at.

He was roused from his ponderings by the crunching of feet on broken
glass, and looked up and beheld Latisan. Halted just inside the door of
the main office was a policeman in uniform. And the officer, well known
by Mern, caught the chief's eye and winked.

Mern jumped to his feet; he was much astonished and glanced to see
whether Latisan's fists were doubled.

"Good morning, sir!" said the caller, politely. "I have come around
early to let you know that I'm not the kind of a man who does a thing
and runs away from the responsibility of it."

With prolonged scrutiny--stares which crossed like fencing blades--the
two principals mutely questioned each