rent. Presently he was wedged up against a broken window. He
precipitated himself through the frame, dropped to the ground, stopped
for an instant to catch breath.

The yelling mob was congregated about the main entrance of the White
House, and on this side the grounds were comparatively empty. As Dick
stopped, trying desperately to form some plan of action, he heard
footsteps and low voices near him. Then two men came toward him,
followed by three or four others.

The men--but, though the light was faint, Dick realized instantly that
they were wearing invisible garments. He could see nothing of them; he
could see through where they seemed to be--the trees, the buildings of
the streets. Yet they were at his elbow. And they saw him. He heard
one of them leap, and sprang aside as the butt of a pistol descended
through the air and dropped where his head had been.

Yet no hand had seemed to hold it. It had been a pistol, reversed, and
flashing downward, to be arrested in mid-air six inches from his face.
But the men were not wholly invisible. Nearly six feet above the
ground, three or four pairs of eyes were staring malevolently into
Dick's. Only the eyes were there.

The two foremost men were breathing heavily. They were carrying
something. Grotesquely through a rent in the invisible garment Dick
saw a patch of trouser. He heard a muffled sigh. President Hargreaves,
in the hands of his abductors!

Dick's actions were reflex. As the pistol hung beside his face, he
snatched at it, wrested it away, struck with it, and heard a curse and
felt the yielding impact of bone and flesh. He had missed the head but
struck the shoulder. Next moment hands gripped the weapon, and a
desperate struggle began.

* * * * *

It was torn from Dick's grasp. He struck out at random, and his fist
collided with the chin of a substantial flesh and blood human being.
Invisible arms grasped him. He fought free. The pistol slashed his
face sidewise, the sight ripping a strip of flesh from the cheek. He
was surrounded, he was being beaten down, though he was fighting
gamely.

"Kill the swine! Shoot! Shoot!" Dick heard one of his assailants
muttering.

Out of the void appeared the blue muzzle of another automatic, with a
silencer on it. Dick ducked as a flame spurted from it. He felt the
bullet stir his hair. He grasped at the hand that held it, and missed.
Then he was held fast, and the muzzle swung implacably t