apparently_
gone wrong."

"You include our nice girls--from what we used to call Middleville's
best families?"

"I don't only include them. I throw the emphasis on them. The girls
you know best."

Lane straightened up, to look at his companion. Pepper certainly was
not drunk.

"Do you know--anything about Lorna?"

"Nothing specifically to prove anything. She's in the thick of this
thing in Middleville. Only a few nights ago I saw her at a roadhouse,
out on the State Road, with a crowd of youngsters. They were having a
high old time, I'll say. They danced jazz, and I saw Lorna drink
lemonade into which liquor had been poured from a hip-pocket flask."

Lane put his head on his hands, as if to rest it, or still the
throbbing there.

"Who took Lorna to this place?" he asked, presently, breathing
heavily.

"I don't know. But it was Dick Swann who poured the drink out of the
flask. Between you and me, Lane, that young millionaire is going a
pace hereabouts. Listen," he went on, lowering his voice, and glancing
round to see there was no one to overhear him, "there's a gambling
club in Middleville. I go there. My rooms are in the same building.
I've made a peep-hole through the attic floor next to my room. Do I
see more things than cards and bottles? Do I! If the fathers of
Middleville could see what I've seen they'd go out to the asylum....
I'm not supposed to know it's more than a place to gamble. And nobody
knows I know. Dick Swann and Hardy Mackay are at the head of this
club. Swann is the genius and the support of it. He's rich, and a high
roller if I ever saw one.... Among themselves these young gentlemen
call it the Strong Arm Club. Study over that, Lane. Do you _get_ it? I
know you do, and that saves me talking until I see red."

"Pepper, have you seen my sister--there?" queried Lane, tensely.

"Yes."

"With whom?"

"I'll not say, Lane. There's no need for that. I'll give you a key to
my rooms, and you can go there--in the afternoons--and paste yourself
to my peep-hole, and watch.... Honest to God, I believe it means
bloodshed. But I can't help that. Something must be done. I'm not
much good, but I can see that."

Colonel Pepper wiped his moist face. He was now quite pale and his
hands shook.

"I never had a wife, or a sweetheart," he went on. "But once I had a
little sister. Thank Heaven she didn't live her girlhood in times like
these."

Lane again bowed his head on his hands, and wrestled with