"Did you say they were carrying a woman?" Johnny asked Jerry, as they
hastened down the stairs.

"Yes, a skirt; a swell-looking skirt. Mouth gagged, hands tied, but
dressed to kill, opry coat and everything!"

"Some more of their dirty work," Johnny grumbled, "but we'll get them
this time. If we can convince the police that they're there they'll drag
the river and haul 'em out like a dead rat."

* * * * *

At the moment when the three men were hurrying down the stairs which led
from Johnny's room to the street, Mazie sat silently searching the faces
of the men about her. Wild questions raced through her brain. Who were
these men? Why had they kidnapped her? What did they want? What would
they do to her? She shivered a little at the last question.

That they were criminals she had not the least doubt. Only criminals
could do such a thing. But what type of criminal were they? In her
research courses at the University she had visited court rooms, jails
and reformatories. Criminals were not new to her. But these men lacked
utterly the markings of the average city criminal. Their eyes lacked the
keen alertness, their fingers the slim tapering points of the
professional crook. Suddenly, as she pondered, there came to her mind a
paragraph from one of her text-books on crime:

"There are two types of law-breakers. The one believes that the hand of
organized society is lifted against him; the other that he is bound to
lift his hand against organized society. The first class are the common