e. Yet they
knew they couldn't shoot their way out through a multitude, either
at the front or the back of the building.

On the other hand, the High School boys didn't care about rushing
into a darkness that was held by armed men.

Thus the opposing sides stood holding each other at bay until
new actors came upon the scene---the police reserves.

Four officers ran to the front of the bank. Chief Coy and four
more appeared in the lane among the High School boys.

"Now, young gentlemen, jump out, if you please!" rang the chief's
order, "We've got to get inside at those fellows, and there may
be a good many bullets flying."

"Huh!" objected Thomp. "We penned that gang up for you. Now,
are you going to chase us off just as the real fun starts?"

"If you stay, it'll be at your own risk, then," answered Chief
Coy, with a rather pleased grin, for he had followed the fortunes
of Gridley H.S. on the football gridiron, and well enough he knew
the school grit.

Pushing their way through, the police made their way to the closed
rear door.

"Within, there!" summoned Coy, knocking lustily on the door.
"You are surrounded, and may as well give up. Open the door,
and come out, and you'll be safe."

There was a pause. Then a gruff voice demanded:

"If we open you don't fire on us?"

"Not if you come out with your hands held up high."

"All right, then. Give us time to open the door."

The light from the police dark lanterns played on the door as
it swung open. Then two very crestfallen robbers, holding their
hands well aloft, came out on the steps.

The windows of the hall, some distance away, had been thrown up.
A lot of white-gowned girls, some with covered heads, and some
not, looked wonderingly out at the spot lighted up by the dark
lanterns.

Chief Coy and two of his officers quickly entered the bank. It
was ten minutes before they reappeared.

"Somebody has done us the good turn of discovering this thing
just in time tonight," announced Coy, with a grave face. "The
vault door is blown entirely off, and the vault is stacked high
with sacks of money. Who first discovered this thing anyway?"

"Don't you know?" called Ben Badger.

From a score of throats at once the information broke forth:

"Dick & Co.!"

"It'll be a good night's work for Dick & Co., then, when the bank
directors meet" declared Chief Coy. "In three or four minutes
more these robbers would have been going sixty miles an hour wi