ing unable to right it again, had passed
most of the night in a position of extreme discomfort. Toward morning,
his confinement had become positive agony, and he had inwardly raved at
Wade, the gag in his mouth making audible expression impossible, until
he was black in the face.

"My God, Race!" the Senator exclaimed, when, having cut the lashings and
withdrawn the gag, he saw his agent in a state bordering on collapse,
"what has happened to you?" He helped the man to his feet and held him
up.

"My throat--dry--whiskey!" Moran gasped, and groaned as he clutched at
the desk, from which he slid into a chair, where he sat rubbing his
legs, which ached with a thousand pains.

Rexhill found a bottle of whiskey and a glass on a shelf in the closet.
He poured out a generous drink of the liquor and handed it to Moran,
but the agent could not hold it in his swollen fingers. The Senator
picked up the glass, which had not broken in its fall and, refilling it,
held it to Moran's lips. It was a stiff drink, and by the time it was
repeated, the agent was revived somewhat.

"Now, tell me," urged Rexhill.

Prepared though he was for an outburst of fury, he was amazed at the
torrent of blasphemous oaths which Moran uttered. He caught Wade's name,
but the rest was mere incoherence, so wildly mouthed and so foul that he
began to wonder if torture had unbalanced the man's mind. The expression
of Moran's eyes, which had become mere slits in his inflamed and puffy
face, showed that for the time he was quite beyond himself. What with
his blued skin and distended veins, his puffed lips and slurred speech,
he seemed on the brink of an apoplectic seizure. Rexhill watched him
anxiously.

"Come, come, man. Brace up," he burst out, at length. "You'll kill
yourself, if you go on that way. Be a man."

The words seemed to have their effect, for the agent made a supreme
effort at the self-control which was seldom lacking in him. He appeared
to seize the reins of self-government and to force himself into a state
of unnatural quiet, as one tames a frantic horse.

"The safe!" he muttered hoarsely, scrambling to his feet.

His stiffened legs still refused to function, however, and Rexhill,
hastening to the safe, threw open the door. One glance at the
disordered interior told him the whole story. Moran watched feverishly
as he dragged the crumpled papers out on the floor and pawed through
them.

"Gone?"

"Gone!"

They looked at each other,