been brought for years
into contact with the miserable types that make an illicit living by
preying upon the unsuspecting in big cities. Always in the little
Irish girl there had been a yearning for things clean and decent, but
it is almost impossible for the poor in a great city to escape from the
environment that presses upon them.

She was pretty, and inevitably she had lovers. One of these was "Slim"
Jim Collins, a confidential follower of Jerry Durand. He was a crook,
and she knew it. But some quality in him--his good looks, perhaps, or
his gameness--fascinated her in spite of herself. She avoided him,
even while she found herself pleased to go to Coney with an escort so
well dressed and so glibly confident. Another of her admirers was a
policeman, Tim Muldoon by name, the same one that had rescued Clay from
the savagery of Durand outside the Sea Siren. Tim she liked. But for
all his Irish ardor he was wary. He had never asked her to marry him.
She thought she knew the reason. He did not want for a wife a woman
who had been "Slim" Jim's girl. And Annie--because she was Irish too
and perverse--held her head high and went with Collins openly before
the eyes of the pained and jealous patrolman.

Clay had come to Annie Millikan now because of what she had told him
about "Slim" Jim. This man was one of Durand's stand-bys. If there
was any underground work to be done it was an odds-on chance that he
would be in charge of it.

"I'm askin' you to stand by a poor girl that's in trouble," he said in
answer to her question.

"You've soitainly got a nerve with you. I'll say you have. You want
me to throw the hooks into Jim for a goil I never set me peepers on. I
wisht I had your crust."

"You wouldn't let Durand spoil her life if you could stop it."

"Wouldn't I? Hmp! Soft-soap stuff. Well, what's my cue? Where do I
come in on this rescue-the-be-eutiful heroine act?"

"When did you see 'Slim' Jim last?"

"I might 'a' seen him this afternoon an' I might not," she said
cautiously, looking at him from under a broad hat-brim.

"When?"

"I didn't see him after I got behind that 'How Many?' sign. If I seen
him must 'a' been before two."

"Did he give you any hint of what was in the air?"

"Say, what's the lay-out? Are you framin' Jim for up the river?"

"I'm tryin' to save Kitty."

"Because she's your goil. Where do I come in at? What's there in it
for me to go rappin' me friend?" demanded A