"If it's within human power," conditioned the square-built, deep-eyed
man.

The talkative gentleman of genius said nothing. All three of them left
the house a few minutes later.

* * * * *




CHAPTER XIV.

TRAPPED.


There was little sleep for anyone at the Stanlock home that night. The
mystery of the patched-up letter, coupled with Helen's apparently
voluntary disappearance and the fear that she had been led into a
trap of some sort, in line with the threat contained in the
skull-and-cross-bones letter, kept everybody up until long after
midnight. Meanwhile, Mr. Stanlock called up the police station and
asked the lieutenant in charge to come over and begin work on a new
angle of the strike developments.

"One of the girls has disappeared, and we are afraid that something
serious has happened," he told the officer over the telephone.

The latter soon drove up to the house in an automobile and was