"Shut up!" came the surly answer.

Fully a dozen men now moved forward. With the single exception of Duff,
each had a cloth, with eye-holes, tied in place over his face.

"My, but this looks delightfully mysterious!" chuckled Tom.

"You be still, boy, except when you answer something that calls for a
reply," ordered Jim Duff, who had dropped all of the surface polish of
manner that he usually employed. "This meeting need not last long, and
I'll do most of the talking."

"Won't these other gentlemen present be allowed to do some of the
talking?" the young engineer inquired.

"They don't want to," Duff explained gruffly. "That might lead to their
being recognized."

"Oh, that's the game?" mused Tom Reade aloud. "Why, I thought they had
the handkerchiefs over their faces because--"

"Shut up and listen!" warned Jim Duff.

"...because," finished Tom, "they wanted me to feel that everything was
being done regularly and in good dime-novel form. My, but they do look
like some of the fellows that Hen Dutcher used to tell us about. Hen
used to waste more time on dime novels than--"

"Shut up!" again commanded Duff. "These gentlemen feel that there is no