The City of Fire

ed a half hour, but in reality it was but a few seconds before he heard a low whistl

for he had no desire to foot it home, and anyway, with his bicycle he would be far more independent. Besides, there was the perfectly good automobile to think about. If the man was dead he couldn't be any deader. If he was only doped it would be some time before he

e off at a brisk pace down the mountain, not waiting this time to double on the

l game last year. Mark's hand and arm had looked like that-he had held his fingers like that-when they picked him up. Mark had the base-ball hand! Of course that rich guy might have been an athlete too, they were sometimes. And of course Mark was right now at home and in bed, where Billy wished he was also, but somehow the memor

the East, but none had come as yet. The moon had

o go to the Blue Duck Tavern on account of his aunt. She had once made him promise most solemnly, bringing in something about his dead mother, that he would never go to the Blue Duck Tavern. But this was a case of necessity, and dead mothers, if they cared at all, ought to understand. He had a deep underlying faith in the principle of what a mother-at any rate a de

uld be even better for him, for the road on which they now were passed within a quarter of a mile of

to wait till Pat was far ahead before he dared go after his wheel, and he would lose so much time there would be no use in trying to save the car. On the other hand if he stayed on the car he was liable to be seen by Pat, and perhaps caught.

fired fer not being there fer the early milk train, there'll be no more fat jobs fer youse. Now be sure ye do as you're told. Leave the car in the first field beyond the woods after ye cross

f down the road, too sleepy to look behind, and Billy held his breath and

usually exciting season, when Billy like the hardened promise-breaker he felt himself to be, boldly slid in at the door and disappeared inside the telephone booth

habitues of the Tavern slid into seats at the table to the left of the booth, ordered drinks and beg

t up to go, and he grabbed her hands and made her set down; and just set there fer sometime alookin' at her hard an' holdin' her han's and chewin' the rag at her. I don't know what all they was sayin,' fer he talked mighty low, an' Ike called me to take a hand in the game over tother side the room, so I didn't know no more till I see him a

s amazing conversation, and Billy with difficult

ignal to their pal, three winks, count three slow, and three winks more, and then beat it. Then some guy is gonta wreck the machine. It's up to you and your men to hold the machine till I get the owner there. He don't know it's pinched yet, but I know where to find him, an' he'll have the lice

he was anxious to hear what the men were saying. They had finished their glasses an

f the man dies. Everybody knows he was

t of their haunts now, and Billy

I used to go to school with M

ved Mark Carter! What must he do about it? Must he tell Mark? Or did Mark perhaps know? What had happened anyway? There had evidently been a shooting. That Cherry Fenner was mixed up in it. Billy knew her only by sight. She always grinned at him and said: "Hello, Billee!" in her pretty dimpled way. He didn't care for her himself. He had accepted her as a part of life, a necessary evil. She wore her hair queer, and had very short tight skirts, and high heels. She painted her face and vamped, but that was her affair.

r. This involved Mark's honor.

und within twenty miles around, and darkness did not take away his sense of direction. He crashed along among the branches, making steady headway toward the spot where he had left his bicycle, puffing and panting, his face streaked

ed himself under cover as the train approached, and bided his time. Cautiously, peering from behind the huckleberry growth, he watched Pat slamming the milk cans around. He could see his bicycle lying like

ain hands, loud retorts of the train hands, the engine puffed and wheezed like a fat old lady going upstairs and stopping on every landing to rest. Then slamming of car doors, a whistle, the snort of the engine as it took up its way again out to

eded rest. He slammed the door with a finality that gave Billy relief. The boy waited a moment more in the ga

threaded their way between trees. Then he came out into the Highroad and mounting h

e bells from the church chimed out gently, as bells should do on a Sa

down the street. Even the old squeak of the back whe

ons, and fastened his eyes on the little white fence with the white pillared gate where Mrs. Carter lived. Was that a light in the kitchen window? And the barn that Mark used for his garage when he was at home, was th

for every window, glanced up to the open one above which he knew belonged to Mark's room. Strong grimy finge

ble, but now he trembled, it was Mark's mother, and she had pink rims to her eyes, and little damp crimples around her mouth and eyes for all the world like Aunt Saxon's. She looked-she looked exactly as though she had not slept all night. Her nose was thin and red, and her eyes had that awful blue that eyes get that have been much washed with tears. The soft waves of her hair drooped thinly, and the coil behind showed more threads of silver than of brown in the morning sun

the candle on a shelf

he asked, and there we

rumply, tired, ghastly little pink rimmed mother, apprehensive of the worst as was plain to see. Billy recalled like a flash the old man at the Blue Duck saying, "I'm sorry for his ma. I used to go to school with her." He looked at the faded face with the

s Mark?

ad apprehensivel

d one was straggling down between the crimples of her cheeks where it looked as if she had lain on the folds of her handkerchief all night. There

he'p. He always does," explained Billy awkwardly with

"But-" and the apprehension flew into her eyes again, "He isn't home. Billy, he hasn't come home at all last night! I'm frightened to death!

the occasion even as he would have liked t

s a fella down there that likes him a lot, an' they had somekinduva blowout in their church last

's face rel

tried to th

ter, I'll lookim up fer ya, I

nother thought of school days and life and how queer it was that grow

ow boys don't like to have their mothers worry, so you needn't say anything to Mark that I said I was

nowing wink. "He's a prince! Y

ometime. But how's it come you're up so early?

young face with a

bout the sick guy and had to beat it. Say, you don't happen to know Mark's license number do

uminatively, "let me see. There was six and s

r-" Billy grasped his whe

ou must have so

wait! Gotta beat i

e. Here, I'll get

for the first time that he was

and a plate of cookies. She stuffed the coo

ng milk, "Ya, aint got enny more you cud spare fer that

bottle to take with you. I got extra last night 'count of Mark being home, and then

wrapped it well with newspapers, and Billy packed it safely into th

rage an' get a screw drive

d out a small pointed saw, a neat little auger and a file and stowed them hurriedly under the milk b

Billy rode by, and when he topped the first hill across the valley the bells rang out six sweet strokes as if to remind him that Sunday School was not far off and he must hurry back. But Billy was trying to think how he should get into that lock

tain to avoid Pleasant Valley, and walking a mile or two through thick

red his wheel where it would not be discovered and was yet ea

intention of entering to find that still limp figure of a man gave a most overpowering sense of awe. Billy looked up with wide eyes, the deep shadows under them standing out in the clear light of the morning and giving him a strangely old aspect as if he had jumped over at least ten years during the night. Warily he circled the house, keeping close to the shrubbery at first and listening as a squirrel might have done, then gradually drawing nearer. He noticed that the down stairs shutters were solid iron with a little

eached the last at the back. There he found a bit of stone cracked and loosened and it gave him an idea. He set to work with his few tools, and finally succeeded in loosening one rusted bar. He was much hi

gether that three must be removed before he could hope to crawl through, and even then he might be able

d within him. Bells, and the sweet quiet church with the pleasant daily faces about and the hum of Sunday School beginning! How far away that all seemed to him now as he filed and picked, and sweated,

carefully gathering his effects, tools, milk bottle and cap together, he let them down into the dungeon-like blackness of the ce

avy rafters and looming coal pits. A scurrying rat started a few lumps of coal in the slide, and a cobwebby rope hung ominously from one cross beam, giving him a passing shudder. It seemed as if the spirit of the past had arisen to challenge his entrance thus. He