Part 48 (1/2)

Tony held the key to their rooht of the hall Tony remembered that very distinctly He had i the roo, for Tony had feared soency as that which had befallen

Tony fumbled with the handle of a door, and stabbed vainly at an elusive keyhole

”Wait,” mumbled Benito ”This is not the room It was the second door from the stairway This is the third”

Tony lurched about and staggered back Tony reasoned: ”If that was the third door the next behind ht;” but Tony took not into consideration that he had reversed the direction of his erratic wobbling He lunged across the hall--not because he wished to but because the spirits moved him He came in contact with a door

”This, then, must be the second door,” he soliloquized, ”and it is upon ht Ah, Benito, this is the room!”

Benito was skeptical He said as much; but Tony was obdurate Did he not know a second door when he saw one? Was he, furtherrownbetween his left hand and his right? Yes! Tony was all of that, and more, so Tony inserted the key in the lock--it would have turned any lock upon the second floor--and, lo! the door swung inward upon its hinges

”Ah! Benito,” cried Tony ”Did I not tell you so? See! This is our room, for the key opens the door”

The rooht of his head, which had long since grown unaccountably heavy, rushed his feet rapidly forward that he ht keep them within a few inches of his center of equilibrium

The distance which it took his feet to catch up with his head was equal to the distance between the doorway and the foot of the bed, and when Tony reached that spot, with Benitoafter him, the latter, ht which pervaded the room, the miraculous disappearance of his former enemy and erstwhile friend Then from the depths below came a wild scream and a heavy thud

The sentry upon the beat before the bank heard both For an instant he stood uard, and turned toward the bank door But this was locked and he could but peer in through the s Seeing a dark for a Mexican he raised his rifle and fired through the glass of the doors

Tony, who had dropped through the hole which Billy had used so quietly, heard the zing of a bullet pass his head, and the impact as it sploshed into the adobe wall behind hiht Mary to protect hih the hole into the blackness belon the hall came the barefoot landlord, awakened by the screa his revolver belt about his hips as he ran Not having been furnished with paja, and so he had lost no ti

When the two, now joined by Benito, reached the street they found the guard there, battering in the bank doors Benito, fearing for the life of Tony, which if anyone took should be taken by hi with both lips and hands the remarkable accident which had precipitated Tony into the bank

The sergeant listened, though he did not believe, and when the doors had fallen in, he commanded Tony to come out with his hands above his head

Then followed an investigation which disclosed the looting of the safe, and the great hole in the ceiling through which Tony had tueant and the landlord were in Billy's rooringo,” cried the excited Boniface ”This is his room He has cut a hole in my floor which I shall have to pay to have repaired”

A captain came next, sleepy-eyed and profane When he heard what had happened and that the wealth which he had been detailed to guard had been taken while he slept, he tore his hair and promised that the sentry should be shot at dawn

By the time they had returned to the street all the male population of Cuivaca was there and most of the female

”One-thousand dollars,” cried the bank president, ”to the man who stops the thief and returns to me what the villain has stolen”

A detach the bank as the offer was o?” asked the captain ”Did no one see hi that he had seen him and that he had ridden north, when it occurred to him that a thousand dollars--even a thousand dollars Mex--was a great deal of money, and that it would carry both hi for pleasure beside

Then up spoke a tall, thin man with the skin of a coffee bean

”I saw him, Senor Capitan,” he cried ”He kept his horse inthat he was riding to visit a senorita He fooled me, the scoundrel; but I will tell you--he rode south I saw him ride south with ,” cried the captain, ”for there is but one place to the south where a robber would ride, and he has not had sufficient start of us that he can reach safety before we overhaul him Forward! March!” and the detachment moved down the narrow street

”Trot! March!” And as they passed the store: ”Gallop! March!”