you
will begin to look on me as a jailer. And--"

"Don't!"

"Ah," said he very tenderly, "I knew that I was feeling toward the
truth. You are shrinking from me, Ruth, because you feel that I am too
old."

"No, no!"

Here a hand pounded heavily on the door.

"The idiots have found something," said the man of the sneer. "And now
they have come to talk about their cleverness, like a rooster crowing
over a grain of corn." He raised his voice. "Come in!"

And Ronicky Doone heard a panting voice a moment later exclaim: "We've
got him!"

Chapter Twelve

_The Strange Bargain_

Ronicky drew his gun and waited. "Good," said the man of the sneer.
"Go ahead."

"It was down in the cellar that we found the first tracks. He came in
through the side window and closed it after him."

"That dropped him into the coal bin. Did he get coal dust on his
shoes?"

"Right; and he didn't have sense enough to wipe it off."

"An amateur--a rank amateur! I told you!" said the man of the sneer,
with satisfaction. "You followed his trail?"

"Up the stairs to the kitchen and down the hall and up to Harry's
room."

"We already knew he'd gone there."

"But he left that room again and came down the hall."

"Yes. The coal dust was pretty well wiped off by that time, but we
held a light close to the carpet and got the signs of it."

"And where did it lead?"

"Right to this room!"

Ronicky stepped from among the smooth silks and pressed close to the
door of the closet, his hand on the knob. The time had almost come for
one desperate attempt to escape, and he was ready to shoot to kill.

A moment of pause had come, a pause which, in the imagination of
Ronicky, was filled with the approach of both the men toward the door
of the closet.

Then the man of the sneer said: "That's a likely story!"

"I can show you the tracks."

"H'm! You fool, they simply grew dim when they got to this door. I've
been here for some time. Go back and tell them to hunt some more. Go
up to the attic and search there. That's the place an amateur would
most likely hide."

The man growled some retort and left, closing the door heavily behind
him, while Ronicky Doone breathed freely again for the first time.

"Now," said the man of the sneer, "tell me the whole of it, Ruth."

Ronicky set his teeth. Had the clever devil guessed at the truth so
easily? Had he sent his follower away, merely to avoid having it known
that a man had taken shelter i