want Gortchky, however, to know I'm watching him, and I don't
want to lose this precious paper any more than he does."

Touching the door accidentally with the hand that rested behind his
back, Dave was delighted to feel it swing slightly open. In another
instant he had backed into a corridor, softly closing the door after
him.

"Now Gortchky won't find me, and I'm all right, unless I am discovered
by one of the occupants of this house, and turned over to the police
as a burglar!" thought the young naval officer exultantly.

Gortchky's step, now slower, went by the door, which Dave had left
ajar by only the tiniest crack.

"I cannot have lost that paper here, after all," Dave heard the
international spy mutter in a low voice. "Certainly it has not been
picked up, for I came back almost instantly, and there was no one
near. It is not likely that I shall ever see that important little bit
of paper again."

Yet for a few moments longer Dave heard the international spy moving
about as though still searching. Then the fellow's footsteps died out
as he went around the corner.

"I'll wait a few minutes before I step out," Darrin decided. "Gortchky
may only be laying a trap, and even at this instant he may be peering
around the corner to see if any one steps out of one of these
doorways."

Waiting for what seemed to be a long time, but what was actually only
a few minutes, the young ensign stepped out to the sidewalk again.

There were a few people on his own side of the block, and the sight of
any one leaving a house was not likely to arouse curiosity in the
minds of the denizens of that neighborhood.

As Dave neared the next corner, however, four rough-looking fellows
came out of a little cafe. Their bearing was full of swagger. These
young men, in dress half student and half laborer, with caps pulled
down over their eyes and gaily-knotted handkerchiefs around their
necks, displayed the shifting, cunning look that is found in the
hoodlum everywhere.

As they reached the sidewalk, moving with the noiseless step peculiar
to the Apache, they heard Darrin briskly coming along. Halting, they
regarded him closely as he neared them.

"They look like hard characters," Dave told himself. "However, if I
mind my business, I guess they'll mind theirs."

It was not to be. One of the Apaches, the tallest and slimmest of the
lot, regarded Darrin with more curiosity than did any of the others.

"Ho!" he cried. "See how stiff