Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/175

Rh Judith—climb out of one of the basement windows of Trine's house this morning. Then several rough-looking customers rushed out of Trine's house, seized the girl, and made off with her in a motor-car bearing a New Jersey license number."

Without a word of response, and without a word of apology to the Reverend Mr. Wright, Alan dropped the receiver and fled that house like a man demented.

There was neither a motor-car in sight nor any time to waste in seeking one. Alan could only hope to find one on his way back toward the ferry. He traversed a vast amount of strange territory, and it must have been upward of an hour before he came into a street which he recognized.

As he paused, to cast about him for the way to the ferry, a touring-car turned a corner at top-speed and slowed to a stop before an unsavoury tenement. This touring-car was occupied by half a dozen ruffians in whose hands a young girl struggled, as they jumped out and wrestled her out with brutal inconsideration.

Like a shot Alan had crossed the street, but only to bring up nose to the panels pf the tenement door, and to find himself seized and thrown roughly aside by a burly denizen when he grasped the knob and made as if to follow in.

"Keep back, young feller!" his assailant warned him.