hemselves if worst came to worst; their fear will make them fiends.
One couldn't suppose they would dare seize Martinez in all defiance of
law--but they did. One can't believe they would dream of torturing him
for information--but I haven't a doubt that's what they've done. So
you see why I'm worried about you. If anything happened, if any harm
came to you now, Janet--"

His voice was unsteady as he spoke her name and ceased abruptly. She
thrilled to this betrayal of his feeling.

"I wish I could just stick at your side, then I know I should be
safe," she said.

And for answer she felt his hand grope and press her own for an
instant.

"You can count on me being somewhere around."

"I know that," she said, confidently.

San Mateo was asleep, buried in gloom when they entered it, and quiet
except for the barking of a dog or two that their passage stirred to
activity. But in Dr. Hosmer's cottage a light was burning and as the
car came to a stop at its gate the door was flung open and the doctor
himself appeared framed in the doorway. He ran hastily down the walk
to meet them.

"Janet!" he cried. And the girl flung her arms about him.

"Juanita told you? Oh, it was dreadful! But Mr. Weir has brought me
home safe."

Dr. Hosmer too agitated to speak reached out and grasped the
engineer's hand, pressing it fervently.

* * * * *

At about that moment three men sat in the rear of Vorse's saloon. The
shades were drawn and the front part of the long room was dark. Only a
dull light burned where they sat. They were talking in low tones, with
long pauses, with worried but determined, savage faces--Vorse,
Burkhardt, Sorenson.

"Where the devil is she, that's what I want to know!" Burkhardt
growled. "I've been over twice and looked through a window. Doc was
there."

"She's in bed and asleep, probably," Sorenson said.

"I don't believe it. The old man would be in the sheets himself if
that were the case. Didn't I call up twice by 'phone too? She was out,
they said."

"Couldn't do much with her father there, anyway. We've got to get the
paper by soft talk," Vorse commented. "I still half believe Martinez
was lying when he said it had been in that old chair. She couldn't
have got to the office and away in the hour or two before he told
without some one seeing her, and no one did so far as we can learn. We
locked the door too the second time we went back and it hasn't been
op