t letter, curse you!" hissed the man, "I saw you get it, and
I saw it just now. Give it to me, I tell you."

Ted had managed to put the letter back into his pocket. His right arm
was twisted under his body, and he could not release it.

He looked up into the face of the man, who was straddling his body, and
saw a gleam of malignant hatred in his eyes.

"Let me up, you cur," said Ted.

"After I get the letter," was the reply.

"It's a private letter, and not for you. Let me up!"

Now Ted saw that the man had a knife in his hand--a long, keen knife,
with a pearl hilt and a silver guard.

"If you don't give me that letter at once, you'll not get another
chance, but I'll have it," snarled the man.

Ted began to struggle, but he soon saw that he could do nothing with one
arm out of commission. The man was not only powerful, but heavy, and it
was all Ted could do to more than wriggle his body.

"I tell you you shan't have it," said Ted.

The knife went above the man's head, and in the wielder's face was a
look of the most diabolical hatred Ted had ever seen in a human
countenance.

"For the last time," said the man hoarsely.

There was something about the fellow's actions that told Ted he was
desperate, yet at the same time afraid of the act he was about to
commit.

The knife was about to descend when Ted cried out an alarm, the first he
had sounded.

He heard some one running in the hall. His assailant heard it, also, and
hesitated, looking around with frightened eyes.

"Yi-yipee!" It was Bud's voice, and Ted breathed a prayer of
thankfulness.

"I'll give it to you, anyhow," muttered the man, and again the knife
went up in the air.

But it did not make a strike, for at that moment Bud bounded into the
room, and, taking in the situation with a lightning glance, his foot
flew out, and the toe of his heavy boot struck the man on top of Ted
fairly in the ribs. There was a cracking sound, and with a groan the
fellow dropped the knife and struggled to his feet.

Rushing at Bud, he bowled that doughty individual over like a tenpin,
and dashed into the hall, along which he ran swiftly and lightly, for
so large a man.

When Bud had picked himself up and run to the stairway, he could hear
the fellow clattering down the stairs three flights below.

"Well, dash my hopes," said Bud, "if he didn't get clear away. He shore
treated me like a leetle boy. But I reckon he's in sech a hurry because
he's on his way ter