Part 30 (1/2)

”Hear it!” whispered Joe

”Yes,” answered Blake ”The brass box--the box--he had!”

”Yes,” whispered Joe All the suspicions he had had--all those he had laughed at Blake for harboring, came back to him in a rush

The brass-bound box contained clockwork Was it an alariven an alarot to find it!” said Blake

”Sure,” Joe assented ”It ot to find it Seeround, as though they could see anything in that blackness But they were trying to trace it by the sound of the ticks And it is no easy matter, if you have ever tried to locate the clock in a dark rooive the alarm,” said Blake

”Before it is too late,” assented Joe ”Where can it be? It seems near here, and yet we can't locate it”

”Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around,” advised Blake In this fashi+on they searched for the elusive tick-tick

They could hear it, now plainly, and now faintly, but they never lost it altogether And each of the sound as the sa from the brass-bound box Mr Alcando had said was his new alarm clock

”Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Blake

Off to the left, where was planted the automatic camera, came a faint noise It sounded like a suppressed exclamation Then came an echo as if someone had fallen heavily

An instant later the whole scene was lit up by a brilliant flash--a flash that rivaled the sun in brightness, and lare of day

”The dyna hiht--the automatic camera!” cried Blake There was no need for silence now

The whole scene was brilliantly lighted, and renesiuht

Advancing toward the daure, which had coht It was the figure of a man who had evidently just arisen after a fall

”Mr Alcando!” gasped Joe

”The Spaniard!” fairly shouted Blake

Then, as the two chu that the ca pictures of everytoward Alcando, a nu

”He's surrounded--as good as caught,” Blake cried ”So he's the guilty one”

”Unless there's a mistake,” spoke Joe

”Mistake! Never!” shouted his chulare of the distant flashlight illuround at their feet, and there, directly in front of the box Froave a start

The next moment he had knelt down, and with a pair of pliers he carried for adjusting the mechanism of his ca in the box still went on, but the affair was harmless now It could not e the deadly dynamite

”Boys! Boys! Where are you?” cried Captain Wiltsey

”Here!” cried Blake ”We've stopped the infernal ot the dynamiter He's your friend--”