ing through the
thicket, and just as bad across a swampy clearing where he was mired
to the knees before he got across. Up the hill and into the woods he
forged, keeping doggedly to the direction he had determined. This was
rough country, less than a hundred miles from New York but
uncultivated and unsettled excepting for the few summer places along
the shore. He'd heard that these backwoods were infested with
rum-runners and hijackers, a cutthroat gang.

There was a cabin off there through the trees, almost on the line he
was following. Must be what he was looking for. He advanced
cautiously, creeping stealthily from tree to tree.

Voices came to his ears, and the throb of a motor-generator. It was
the place, all right. He crept closer, and, circling the house, saw
that an almost impassable road led to it from the rear. A heavy
limousine was parked there in the trees, and another car, a yellow
roadster--his own. A feeling of grim satisfaction was quickly
dispelled by the sound of a familiar humming. Within a foot of his
ear, it seemed to be, and instinctively he ducked.

Click! A powerful clamp had fastened itself to his wrist. One of
Shelton's invisible robots! He struck blindly at the unseen monster
and was rewarded by a shooting pain up his wrist as one of his
knuckles was driven backward by the impact with the hard metal. Bands
of writhing metal encompassed his body, pinning his arms to his side
and lifting him bodily from the ground. There he hung, kicking and
struggling in mid-air, supported by nothing he could see. He closed
his eyes and felt of the thing that held him. Cold, hard metal it
was--implacable and unyielding.

Clank, clank. The monster was walking with long, jerky strides. The
pressure against his ribs brought a gasp of agony from his lips. Each
jarring step was an individual and excruciating torture. His breath
was cut off by the relentless constriction of one of the tentacles
which now encircled his neck. It wouldn't be long now.

* * * * *

Then, when everything had turned black and he had given up hope, he
was dumped unceremoniously on the hard floor of the cabin. A harsh
laugh greeted him as he struggled weakly to his knees.

"Thought you could put one over on Al Cadorna, did you?" a voice
rasped.

The room spun round as he tried to regain his feet. A mist swam
before his eyes. Al Cadorna! The most picturesque figure in gangland.
Credited with a dozen ki