ke a start and get to a man that loves her and is
waiting for her, right across the street, she ain't worth worrying
about," said Ronicky sternly. "Do we go this way?"

She hurried before them. "You've waited too long--you've waited too
long!" she kept whispering in her terror, as she led them through the
door, paused to turn out the light behind her, and then conducted them
down a passage like that on the other side of the treasure chamber.

It was all deadly black and deadly silent, but the rustling of the
girl's dress, as she hurried before them, was their guide. And always
her whisper came back: "Hurry! Hurry! I fear it is too late!"

Suddenly they were climbing up a narrow flight of steps. They stood
under the starlight in a back yard, with houses about them on all sides.

"Go down that alley, and you will be on the street," said the girl.
"Down that alley, and then hurry--run--find the first taxi. Will you do
that?"

"We'll sure go, and we'll wait for Caroline Smith--and you, too!"

"Don't talk madness! Why will you stay? You risk everything for
yourselves and for me!"

Jerry Smith was already tugging at Ronicky's arm to draw him away, but
the Westerner was stubbornly pressing back to the girl. He had her hand
and would not leave it.

"If you don't show up, lady," he said, "I'll come to find you. You
hear?"

"No, no!"

"I swear!"

"Bless you, but never venture near again. But, oh, Ronicky Doone, I wish
ten other men in the whole world could be half so generous and wild as
you!" Suddenly her hand was slipped from his, and she was gone into the
shadows.

Down the alley went Jerry Smith, but he returned in an agony of dread to
find that Ronicky Doone was still running here and there, in a blind
confusion, probing the shadowy corners of the yard in search of the
girl.

"Come off, you wild man," said Jerry. "They'll be on our heels any
minute--they may be waiting for us now, down the alley--come off, idiot,
quick!"

"If I thought they was a chance of finding her I'd stay," declared
Ronicky, shaking his head bitterly. "Whether you and me live, don't
count beside a girl like that. Getting soot on one tip of her finger
might mean more'n whether you or me die."

"Maybe, maybe," said the other, "but answer that tomorrow; right now,
let's start to make sure of ourselves, and we can come back to find her
later."

Ronicky Doone, submitting partly to the force and partly to the
persuasion of his friend, t