rtainly he would leave no evidence against him except
that of his own tools. The intruder would probably not be killed
openly. He would either simply disappear or he would be murdered with
witnesses framed to show self-defense. The cattleman was as much
outside the law as the criminals were. He had no legal business in
this house. But one thing was fixed in his mind. He would be no
inactive victim. If they got him at all it would be only after a
fighting finish.

To Clay, standing at the head of the stairs, came a sound that
stiffened him to a tense wariness. A key was being turned in the lock
of the street door below. He moved back into the deeper shadows as the
door swung open.

Two men entered. One of them cursed softly as he stumbled against a
chair in the dark hall.

"Where's that rat Joe?" he demanded in a subdued voice.

Then came a click of the lock. The sound of the street rain ceased.
Clay knew that the door had been closed and that he was shut in with
two desperate criminals.

What have they done with Kitty? Why was she not with them? He asked
himself that question even as he slipped back into a room that opened
to the left.

He groped his way through the darkness, for he dared not flash his
light to guide him. His fingers found the edge of a desk. Round that
he circled toward a closet he remembered having noted. Already the men
were tramping up the stairs. They were, he could tell, in a vile
humor. From this he later augured hopefully that their plans had not
worked out smoothly, but just now more imperative business called him.

His arm brushed the closet door. Next moment he was inside and had
closed it softly behind him.

And none too soon. For into the room came the gunmen almost on his
heels.

CHAPTER XXII

TWO MEN IN A LOCKED ROOM

"Jerry'll raise hell," a heavy voice was saying as they entered the
room. "And that ain't all. We'll land in stir if we don't look out.
We just ducked a bad fall. The bulls pretty near had us that time we
poked our nose out from the Park at Seventy-Second Street."

Some one pressed a button and the room leaped to light. Through the
open crack of the closed door Clay recognized Gorilla Dave. The second
of the gunmen was out of range of his vision.

From the sound of creaking furniture Clay judged that the unseen man
had sat down heavily. "It was that blowout queered us. And say--how
came the bulls so hot on our trail? Who ra