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Rh say. "It'll take him some time, of course—fifteen minutes at least. We'll have to hold off those men on the other side of the door. If it comes to the worst, some of them will get something more than a dose out of a vapor gun. I don't intend to spend fifteen or twenty years in prison!"

"If we had only gone downstairs" Mamie Blanchard began.

"If we had, we'd have run into a few deputies. I tell you they planned to trap us! They've shadowed some of us"

"Then it must have been you!" Mamie Blanchard told him. "I have not been out of the hotel, remember. It's your carelessness that got us into this mess!"

"Well, we won't quarrel about it," Landers said. "You women go to the other side of the roof and wait. I'll stay near the door and handle those men if they manage to break it open."

Landers approached the door, and Verbeck crept after him. The light was so faint that he could see little—just a shadow where the master crook's lieutenant was walking. Verbeck crouched as he advanced, made no noise, and was ready to stop if Landers betrayed any suspicion. But Landers, it appeared, did not expect a foe on the roof, and was intent only upon the door at which the sheriff and Lawrence were pounding.

Verbeck had picked up a piece of timber beside the little refreshment stand. It was the only weapon he had. He hated to use it, but he felt that the situation justified its use. Landers was about a match for him physically, and it was Verbeck's duty to