m not going to leave
you in the lurch."

"Oh, no," said the colonel with elaborate politeness, "nobody's going to
leave me in the lurch. You're just going to quit, that's all, and I've
got to face the music."

"Why don't you quit too, colonel?"

"Quit what?" asked Boundary. "And how? You might as well ask a tree to
quit the earth, to uproot itself and go on living. What happens when I
walk out of this office and take a first-class state-room to New York?
You think the Boundary Gang collapses, fades away, just dies off, eh?
The moment I leave there's a squeal, and that squeal will be loud enough
to reach me in whatever part of the world I may be. There are a dozen
handy little combinations which will think that I am double-crossing
them, and they'll be falling over one another to get in with the first
tale."

Crewe licked his dry lips.

"Well that certainly may be in your case, colonel, but it doesn't happen
to be in mine. I've covered all my tracks so that there's no evidence
against me."

"That's true," said the colonel. "You've just managed to keep out of
taking an important part. I congratulate you."

"There's no sense in getting riled about it," said Crewe; "it has just
been my luck, that's all. Well, I want to take advantage of this luck."

"In what way?"

"I'm out of any bad trouble. The police, if they search for a million
years, couldn't get a scrap of evidence to convict me," he said, "even
if they'd had you when Hanson betrayed you, they couldn't have convicted
me."

"That's true," said the colonel again. He shook his head impatiently.
"Well, what does all this lead to, Crewe? Do you want to be
demobilised?" he asked humorously.

"That's about the size of it," said Crewe. "I don't want to be in
anything fresh, and I certainly don't want to be in this----"

"What?"

"In this Maisie White business," said Crewe doggedly. "Let Pinto do his
own dirty work."

"My dirty work too," said the colonel. "But I reckon you've overlooked
one important fact."

"What's that?" demanded Crewe suspiciously.

"You've overlooked a young gentleman called Jack o' Judgment," said the
colonel, and enjoyed the look of consternation which came to the other's
face. "There's a fellow that doesn't want any evidence. He hanged Raoul
all right."

"Do you think he did it?" said Crewe in a hushed voice.

"Do I think he did it?" The colonel smiled. "Why, who else? And when he
comes to judge you, I guess he's not going t