fireplace went Jack--he could never tell just how he made
that trip of a dozen feet with his sight already growing dim and his
senses commencing to reel, but he knew that he started to stamp out
every atom of those greedy flames, working like one possessed.

Then he clutched the reeling man by the arm and dragged him across to
the window and bundled him out with as little ceremony as if he had been
a sack of oats.

Blinded himself by this time and hardly knowing what he was doing, Jack
managed to climb through the opening and drop down on top of the
writhing figure on the ground.

Here Perk found them both as he came full tilt around the corner,
realizing something not down on the bills as far as his knowledge went,
must have taken place.

"Jack--what's happened--are you bad hurt, buddy?" Perk demanded
excitedly as he bent down over his chum.

"All right--only had to use the tear-gas again--be better right
off--don't let Kearns get away on your life!"

"Hot ziggetty! you jest bet I won't old hoss!" whooped the delighted
Perk as he squatted alongside the still writhing Oswald, his automatic
held in readiness only waiting for Jack to recover enough to take things
in charge.

"Look in the room--see if the papers are safe--in the fireplace--he
started to burn the whole batch and beat us to the scratch--had to give
him the whole works to save 'em!"

Thus enlightened, Perk stood up and took a look then burst out in a
joyous shout that would have done credit to any cow-puncher on earth.

"It's all dandy, Jack--papers safe an' we got our man ditto. Mebbe now
I'll soon get a chance to treat my tummy to some decent grub, 'cause my
ribs're stickin' to my backbone, I'm that empty."

Before long Jack's eyes ceased to sting and his vision once more became
almost normal. By then, too, Kearns had come to his senses, with Perk
keeping him subdued by means of prodding a weapon in his ribs.

Jack hunted around and found some rope with which they temporarily bound
the arms and ankles of their prisoner. That accomplished he made haste
to secure all the papers as well as the ledger which Kearns had been so
eager to destroy when realizing that at last his scorn for the minions
of the law had reaped its inevitable result--the pitcher gone once too
often to the well--and that his game was up.

"What next, Boss?" Perk was asking, "mean to kidnap both o' these guys
Jack?"

"It'll make our chances better with one showing a yellow s