t I will explain when we
meet.' He got up to go, and I turned to Lossing, who, with the tact so
natural to him, had gone to the front of the long room, and was idly
turning the leaves of a directory. 'Dave is about to do the thing I
failed to do, because of this sore head,' I said to him. 'I wish you
would stay with me until he comes back. He won't be long.'

He seated himself without a question, and while Dave was gone, and my
host busy in preparing for my comfort, he talked lightly of this and
that, and finally of my unknown assailant.

'I believe I hit him somewhere,' he said, 'for I heard him drop an
oath as he ran, and, by the way, he dropped something else, too.'

'What was that?'

He got up and went to the place where the policeman had been sitting
until, assured that he could do nothing then, he had gone out with
Dave, declaring his intention to 'go and look over the ground,' a
speech which caused Dave to smile behind his hat. From the floor,
close against the wall, Lossing took up something, which he brought
forward and laid beside me upon the cot.

It was a bar of iron at least four inches in circumference, and
incased in a length of rubber tubing, which was tied tightly over each
end. 'That,' said he, 'is the weapon, and if it had struck you fairly,
it would have been your death.'

I held it in my hand. A death-dealing weapon indeed, and I shuddered
as I put it down, asking myself meanwhile, 'Was it meant for me?'

'But for you,' I said aloud, 'you and Brainerd----'

'Don't!' He put up his hand quickly. 'When I think of what you have
done for me, and--I--I fear you are suffering now in my stead.'

It was the echo of my own thought, and I was glad to see my host
reappear, thus cutting short the subject, which I was glad to drop
just then.

The next morning found me somewhat the worse for my adventure, yet
thankful to find that I could go about my day's business, a little
stiffened from my fall, a trifle weaker than usual, and with an aching
and somewhat misshapen head. But a detective learns to bear occasional
hard knocks with fortitude, and I was thankful to be out of the affair
so easily.

As an evidence of my dazed condition of the night before was the fact
that I had not once thought to ask how Dave and Lossing chanced to be
so near me at my time of need. It was one of my first thoughts and
questions in the morning, however.

'You see,' explained Dave, 'I had not looked for any one quite so