ng Emil into
the other carriage. When it rapidly dashed away, McNerney grimly
said, "All right! Go ahead!"

The officer's quick ear caught the woman's despairing murmur, "Emil!
My boy, my poor son! They will kill him!"

"Not if you are sensible, Mrs. Leah Einstein," growled the policeman.
"But your boy's life depends now only on you."

"Where are you taking me to?" pleaded the woman, her storm of tears
choking her voice. "That you will soon find out," menacingly said
McNerney. "Where you ought to have been long ago!"

In the long ride across the great city, McNerney grew complacent
over his bold stroke in borrowing an unused store-room from the
armorer of the Twenty-ninth Regiment.

It was after eleven o'clock when the three entered the gloomy
basement under the granite buttresses of the armory.

In the lonely arched room only a table and a few chairs relieved
the prison-like emptiness. A man with papers spread out before him
scarcely raised his head as the three entered.

While McNerney drew the terrified woman into a corner, Witherspoon
anxiously paced the floor. Fifteen minutes after their arrival, a
messenger lad dashed into the room with a telegram.

"All right, now, McNerney!" said the lawyer, as he read the dispatch
telling him: "Party on board the 'Rambler.' Set sail at once. Will
telegraph from Tompkinsville."

And then, with a smile of triumph, Dennis McNerney locked the door.
He placed the half-fainting woman in a chair before the notary and
began his inquisition.

The look of utter despair in Leah Einstein's face softened under
the velvety, wooing voice of the man who had boldly abducted her.
In the whispered conference in the corner, he had skilfully played
upon that inexhaustible mother's love which is the one undiminished
treasure of a worn-out world.

The poor wretch at bay little dreamed that cobbler Mulholland was
standing before her, and her tortured heart had forgotten all the
dangers of the cablegram and the tell-tale registered letter. "If
you answer all my questions," kindly said McNerney, "and make a
clean breast of it, you may save your boy. Do you want to do that
young man's life? He stands next to the electric chair now, for
the murder of Mr. Randall Clayton!"

The heart-stricken mother was on her knees in a moment.

"Kill me! Do anything you wish. But spare him! He is innocent! He
knows nothing!"

"Let us see what you know, then!" grimly answered McNerney. "The
notary