artinez was being held prisoner was the additional information Weir
should have liked to glean before the door was shut.

Postponing for the time the hunt along this line, he returned to the
Hosmer dwelling. In answer to his knock and call on this visit the
trembling Juanita appeared, immediately pouring forth a recital of the
happenings at the office as affecting her mistress.

"You've told no one else?" he demanded.

"No, senor. She said I was to say nothing of her being there for the
paper, and I was waiting for her father to come. But she informed me
Mr. Martinez and you knew she was there, so I've told you."

"And you saw nothing of this man who cast the blanket over her head
and seized her?"

"It was dark; we had just come out of the office. But--but the car
sounded like Ed Sorenson's. I've heard it start from here many times
with the same loud noise. They had quarreled, Senor Weir, and were no
longer engaged."

"I know. Which way did he drive off?"

"East, down the lower end of the street."

"Bring a lamp out to my car, so I can fix my tire."

With the girl holding the light by his side the engineer worked with
concentrated energy in stripping the wheel, in inserting a new tube,
replacing the tire and pumping it up. The thin drizzle glistened on
his face, but for all that it was none the less determined, stern.

"You need not be afraid for yourself; no one but us knows you were
there," he said to her, climbing into his machine. "Nor for Miss
Janet, either. I'll bring her home safely. When Dr. Hosmer returns,
tell him everything. Also ask him to await our coming. Be sure and say
to him that I'll bring her home unharmed and that I advise silence in
regard to the matter until I have talked with him. You will remain
quiet, of course. This isn't a thing to be gossiped about."

"No, senor."

Away the automobile shot under the impulsion of the gas. Minutes,
golden minutes, had been wasted in taking up the pursuit because of
his going to Martinez' office and because of the flat tire. Sorenson
now would be miles away with his prisoner.

Sweeping out of town with the car's headlights illuminating the road,
Steele Weir blessed the drizzling mist that dampened the dust so as to
leave a tire's imprint. Almost at once he picked up the track, for not
more than twenty or twenty-five minutes had elapsed since Sorenson's
flight and not even a horseman had since been over the way.

Though he knew it not, the interv