chuckled as Lane came in.

"So they've got you, too, Dicky, have they?" he remarked. "It's a
hold-up--a bully one, too. Makes one feel quite homesick, eh? How much
have you got on you?"

"Precious little, thank heavens!" Richard muttered.

His eyes were fixed upon the brigand who was collecting the jewels, and
who was now approaching Miss Grex. He felt something tingling in his
blood. One of the guests began to talk excitedly. The man who was
apparently the leader, and who was standing at the door with an electric
torch in one hand and a revolver in the other, stepped a little forward.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "once more I beg you not to be alarmed.
So long as you part with your valuables peaceably, you will be at
liberty to depart as soon as every one has been dealt with. If there is
no resistance, there will be no trouble. We do not wish to hurt any
one."

The collector of jewels had arrived in front of the girl. She unfastened
her necklace and handed it to him.

"The little pendant around my neck," she remarked calmly, "is valueless.
I desire to keep it."

"Impossible!" the man replied. "Off with it."

"But I insist!" she exclaimed. "It is an heirloom."

The man laughed brutally. His filthy hand was raised to her neck. Even
as he touched her, Lane, with a roar of anger, sent one of his guards
flying on to the floor of the barn, and, snatching the gun from his
hand, sprang forward.

"Come on, you fellows!" he shouted, bringing it down suddenly upon the
hand of the robber. "These things aren't loaded. There's only one of
these blackguards with a revolver."

[Illustration: "Come on, you fellows!" he shouted.]

"And I've got him!" Hunterleys, who had been watching Lane closely,
cried, suddenly swinging his arm around the man's neck and knocking his
revolver up.

There was a yell of pain from the man with the jewels, whose wrist Lane
had broken, a howl of dismay from the others--pandemonium.

"At 'em, Freddy!" Lane shouted, seizing the nearest of his assailants by
the neck and throwing him out into the darkness. "To hell with you!" he
added, just escaping a murderous blow and driving his fist into the face
of the man who had aimed it. "Good for you, Hunterleys! There isn't one
of those old guns of theirs that'll go off. They aren't even loaded."

The barn seemed suddenly to become half empty. Into the darkness the
little band of brigands crept away like rats. In less than half a minute
they had