across."

Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn
Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows.

"Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when
you got two thousand dollars."

"Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham.

"I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore.

He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps
echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence
in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the
lights in Archibald McBride's windows.




CHAPTER FOUR

ADVENTURE IN EARNEST


Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without
adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in
about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared,
and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering
flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter