that woman back into the prison where she belongs."

"I ain't no stool pigeon," grumbled the bartender.

"Neither am I asking you to be a stool pigeon," said the detective.
"What I want you to do is simple enough. I am not laying any plans
against any of the regular frequenters of this place. It's only Black
Madge I want, and you have confessed already that you don't like her.
Now, it's up to you if you want to go through this whole job, and do it
right. And, Phil, if you will stick to me and see the whole game through
the way I have outlined it to you, another thousand goes with the first
one."

"Geewhiz! do you mean that?"

"I certainly do."

"Well, then, I'm game for the whole layout, and I will see it through to
the end, but I don't want you to forget, Carter, that, if anything ever
comes of it so that my part in this business is found out by any one of
that crowd down there now, male or female, I wouldn't give a snap for
my chances of being alive twenty-four hours afterward."

"They won't find it out through me," said the detective. "If they find
it out at all it will be through you. And there's one thing more you
must remember, Phil, and that is if you betray me you will be in a whole
lot worse fix than you would be if your friends downstairs discover your
treachery. For if you do betray me, I will never let up on you, Phil,
until I see you behind the bars for a term of years that will make you
an old man before you come out again."

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE GLARE OF A MATCH.

When the bartender had taken his departure, Nick found a cigar in one of
his pockets, and seated himself to smoke quietly until Phil should
return. But when more than half an hour later the cigar was consumed,
and he had thrown it aside, he began to feel a sense of uneasiness that
the man should be gone so long a time.

However, he realized that it was no easy task that Phil had undertaken,
and that he might well occupy an hour or more in accomplishing it.

He had no more cigars to smoke, but he seated himself resolutely in a
chair, determined to wait with patience until his messenger should
return.

There was a small clock, ticking away merrily on the mantel, at the far
end of the room, and the detective watched it while the minute hand
worked its way slowly around the dial, until an hour, then an hour and a
quarter, and, finally, an hour and twenty minutes had elapsed since the
departure of the bartender.

His impatien