reme consequence in all the world. The dynamic
qualities of Halloway were nothing and less than nothing, now. She
wanted for always that gentle strength and whimsical smile that were
soon to be licked up in flame and torture. If this man were not saved
she could, herself, no longer endure to live--and there was no way of
saving him!

While Alexander crouched there with her blood congealed she saw the
torch applied, saw its flame leap ravenously to the welcome of the
kerosene and secure a hold upon the building itself as sure and
tenacious as the grip of a bulldog's clamped jaws.

The plotters who fired the elevator showed her only their backs.

How long would it be before the man inside recognized the acrid odor
and realized his fate? What would he do then? Presumably he would
dash for the door, and there both flame and rifle fire would be
awaiting him.

The incendiaries had now passed around the corner of the house and the
moonlight fell upon the long chute which ran almost vertically down to
the railway tracks below. Into Alexander's mind shot a desperate
resolution. It offered a slender chance at best--yet the only one.

Still for a moment, she questioned it. There were so many ways that it
might turn out--and of them all, one only could possibly end in success.

Then she slipped over to the great handle that controlled the flow of
grain, locked into place with its chain and padlock. If she were seen
she would, of course, be killed, but the murder crew seemed to have
massed at the front of the place now, watching the door, until the fire
should take that task off their hands. The flames were crackling loud
enough now to cover the noise which must attend her next move--and to
afford her a light for her work.

A heavy iron bar lay on the ground and with it the girl forced the
chain and bent all her strength to the great lever that should launch
the stored wheat into its quicksand flow. She flung her good muscles
and her substantial weight so fiercely into that effort that the shaft
snapped at its fulcrum--but not until it had done its work.

Alexander rushed for the brow of the cliff, and this time she was not
obstructed. The relaxed vigilance of a job well done had stolen upon
the watchers.

The journey down the precipice was one that had its difficulties, and
Alexander's brain was reeling with a score of terrors--yet somehow she
reached the tracks.

O'Keefe would not be in the wheat bin itself