shouldn't have let me. You certainly were at fault. However, it doesn't
matter."

Idepski removed his cigarette from his lips and dropped the ash of it in
the waste basket.

"No. It doesn't matter, because I'll get you--in the end," he retorted
coldly.

"Perhaps."

Standing shrugged. But there was no indifference in his eyes. The acid
sharpness of Idepski's retort had driven straight home. If the agent
failed to detect it, the watchful eyes of Bat missed nothing. To him the
danger signal lay in the curious flicker of his friend's eyelids. The
sight impelled him. He jumped in and took up the challenge in the blunt
fashion he best understood.

"Guess you've got nightmare, boy," he said, with a sneering laugh. "I
ain't much at figgers, but it seems to me if it's taken you seven years
to locate us here, it's going to take you seventy-seven gettin' Standing
back across that border. Work it out."

Idepski had no intention of being drawn. He replied without turning.

"You think that?" he said easily. "Say, don't worry a thing; I'm
satisfied. Just as sure as the sun'll rise to-morrow, Hellbeam'll get
Leslie Martin, or Standing as he chooses to call himself now, just where
he needs him. And if I know Hellbeam that'll be in the worst
penitentiary the United States can produce. Guess you're going to wish