"Now, Jacques, now!" Ray yelled. His host jumped, and was outside
the door in an instant. Ray grasped another flat-iron and waited.
The sound of struggling beneath the bed was unabated.

In five minutes he heard a plaintive voice calling outside:

"Where you put dem goons?"

"In the milk-room."

_"Oui,_ but where? Ah'm freezing!"

"I--I don't remember."

Jacques, saying many things in a _patois_ he had never learned
in the provincial school, went back to the milk-room. The lynx
ventured to show his head, and a flat-iron dented the floor close
beside it. Then the animal circled the room, dodged another
missile, and hid in a dark corner.

Ray could hear Jacques tossing things about in the obscurity of the
milk-room, but plainly finding no guns, and as plainly getting
colder every minute.

Something must be done at once. He clutched a flat-iron in each
hand, screwed his courage to the sticking point, and dropped to the
floor.

As he flung the door wide open, he heard the rasping of the lynx's
claws on the boards behind him. He dashed outside, threw both