Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/285

. Such things are obsolete. This little jimmy, if you want to call it that, has a power of ten tons. That ought to be enough."

It seemed as if the door were slowly being crushed in before the irresistible ten-ton punch of the hydraulic ram.

Kennedy stopped. Evidently he did not dare to crush the door in altogether. Quickly he released the ram and placed it vertically. Under the now-yawning doorjamb he inserted a powerful claw of the ram and again he began to work the handle.

A moment later the powerful door buckled, and Kennedy deftly swung it outward so that it fell with a crash on the cellar floor.

As the noise reverberated, there came a sound of a muttered curse from the cavern. Some one was there.

We pressed forward.

On the floor, in the weird glare of the little furnace, lay a man and a woman, the light playing over their ghastly, set features.

Kennedy knelt over the man, who was nearest the door.

"Call a doctor, quick," he ordered, reaching over and feeling the pulse of the woman, who had half fallen out of her chair. "They will be all right soon. They took what they thought was their usual adulterated cocaine—see, here is the box in which it was. Instead, I filled the box with the pure drug. They'll come around. Besides, Carton needs both of them in his fight."

"Don't take any more," muttered the woman, half