-he carried
his life in his hands for nothing, it seems to me."

"They always do sooner or later. He's an old hand at the game, or he
wouldn't be so anxious to let us know he's still in the neighbourhood."

While he was speaking, the door opened and Soden, the hotelkeeper,
excitedly entered the room.

"Here, come across the road, quick. Come and have a look at it. Hang me
if this doesn't beat cock-fighting. They've stuck up the pub and cleared
off with the till and all the takings," he exclaimed.

He led the way to his hotel, the front door of which was open.

"As I found it," he said as he pulled it to until it was ajar. "When we
closed for the night it was locked and bolted. Look at it."

Durham carefully examined it.

"Opened by an expert burglar," he said quietly.

"No one but a master of the craft could have done it so neatly. Show me
the till."

Soden led them into the bar. The till, empty, was on the floor; every
cupboard door was forced and the place in chaos.

As they stood looking at the wreck, voices sounded outside and other men
trooped in.

"Here, I say," the first-comer cried. "Here's a pretty go. Someone has
been in my place and cleared every pennypiece out of it and--hullo!" he
exclaimed as he looked at the state of Soden's bar, one of the show
places of the town under ordinary conditions. "You seem to have had them
too, and there's a mob outside, all with the same story."

There was no gainsaying what had happened. While the men of the town
were out careering after the mysterious Rider, their homes had been
rifled of everything of value. The town was stripped as clean as though
a tribe of human locusts had swept through it. Two places only were
unvisited, the bank and Mrs. Eustace's cottage, in both of which places
lights had been burning.

Not even the police-station escaped, though not until Durham and Brennan
returned to it did they realise the fact. What money there was in the
place had vanished; a watch Brennan had left hanging over his bunk had
disappeared and, as if to emphasise the visit, the pages of the record
book were smeared with ink and defaced.

Brennan glanced covertly at his superior who, with a heavy frown on his
brow, stood scowling at the defaced book.

"Have the revolvers gone?" he asked suddenly.

Brennan turned to the locker where they were kept.

"No, sir, they are here all right. I fancy he must have been disturbed
before he could finish his work here. None