good."

One of the deputies marched up to the corner, pushing a young fellow
before him.

"Tried to duck out the back door," the deputy explained to his brother
officers. He shoved his prisoner into the group in the corner. "I guess
that's all of them. Let's get them out of here. Come on, you birds, out
the door; step lively and no funny business."

Murphy was at his side as they walked out into the street, guarded on
each side by the deputies. A motor truck was backed up to the curb and
in it were fifteen or twenty men, young and old, laughing and smoking.
A crowd of men and women, spectators to the raid, thronged the sidewalk
on either side.

John stepped to the side of one of the deputies.

"Listen, old man," he said. "I'm a reporter."

The deputy stepped back in mock surprise.

"You don't say so!" he exclaimed. "A reporter, eh? Well, you ain't
nobody, see! Why, one of your pals we got in there told me he was the
sheriff's nephew. Another one tried to bull me that he was one of
Gibson's men."

"Gibson!" exclaimed John. Then it dawned on him; this was one of the
police commissioner's "personally conducted" raids, his first attack on
"Gink" Cummings, without a doubt.

"Yes, Gibson," said the deputy. "What about it?"

"Is this one of Gibson's raids?" he asked.

"You guessed it," snapped the deputy. "Now, get along there. Hop on that
truck with the rest of the gents and see if you can't get consolation
from the sheriff's nephew and the bird that tried to bull me he was
working for Gibson."

"But I am a reporter," protested John. "You'll find out soon enough."

"Don't get gay!" threatened the deputy. "Don't get gay!"

John scrambled on the truck.

"Come right along, brother, join our party," said a red-faced man in a
brown check suit and a greasy derby hat, who reached down to help John
up.

The truck was now crowded with standing men. Three of the deputies swung
themselves up on the back of it to act as a rear guard. Murphy squirmed
through the tightly packed load until he reached John's side again.

"Listen, kid," he said in his husky voice. "If you want to find out
something about dis game, just keep your trap shut and do what Tim
Murphy tells you. Get me? I was tipped to dis raid but I didn't know it
was coming so soon or I'd got ya out of it, see? It's a phoney, see.
There's ten bucks in it for ya if ya go through with it like I tell ya,
see?"

"What are you talking about, Murphy?" John demand