A little silence. Then said Catherine:
"You mean, Gabriel, that if we can keep the troops back for a little
while, and annihilate the Air Trust plant itself, the great revolution
will follow?"

He nodded, with a smouldering fire in his eyes.

"Yes," said he. "If we can loosen the grip of this monster for only
forty-eight hours, and flash the news to this bleeding, sweating,
choking land that the grip _is_ loosened--after that we need do no more.
_Après nous, le déluge_; only not now in the sense of wreck and ruin,
but meaning that this deluge shall forever wash away the tyranny and
crime of Capitalism! Forever and a day, to leave us free once more, free
men and women, standing erect and facing God's own sunlight, our
heritage and birthplace in this world!"

Catherine made no answer, but her hand clasped his. The light on her
magnificent masses of copper-golden hair, braided about her head,
enhanced her beauty. And so for a moment, the little group sat there
about the table--the group on which now so infinitely much depended; and
the lamp-glow shone upon their precious plans, reports and diagrams.

Into each others' eyes they looked, and knew the moment of final
conflict was drawn very near, at last. The moment which, in failure or
success, should for long years, for decades, for centuries perhaps,
determine whether the world and all its teeming millions were to be
slave or free.

They spoke no word and took no oath of life-and-death fidelity, those
men and women who now had been entrusted with the fate of the world. But
in their eyes one read unshakable devotion to the Cause of Man,
unswerving loyalty to the Great Ideal, and a calm, holy faith that would
make light of death itself, could death but pave the way to victory!




CHAPTER XXX.

TRAPPED!


Brevard was the first to speak. "Gabriel," said he, "we have agreed that
you must be the leader in this whole affair. The actual, personal
leader. To begin with, you're younger and physically stronger than any
of us men. Your executive ability is, without any question whatever, far
and away ahead of ours--for we are more in the analytical, compiling,
organizing, preparing line. To cap all, your personality carries more,
far more, with the mass of the comrades than any of ours. Your career,
in the past, your conflict with Flint and Waldron, and your long
imprisonment, have given you the necessary following. You, and you
alone, must issue the final call, lead the last, supreme attack, and
carry the old flag, the Crimson Banner of Brotherhood, to the topmost
battlement of an annihilated Capitalism!"

Gabriel demurred, but they overruled him. So, presently, he consented;
and pledged his life to it; and thrilled with pride and joy at thought
of what now lay written in the Book of Fate, for him to read.

Catherine's eyes shone with a strange light, as she looked upon him
there, so modest yet so strong. And he, smiling a little as his gaze met
hers, foresaw other things than war, and was glad. His heart sang within
him, that memorable and wondrous night, up there in the hiding-place
among the Great Smokies--there with Catherine and the other
comrades--there planning the last great blow to strike away forever the
shackles from the bleeding limbs of all the human race!

But serious and urgent things were to be thought of, and at once, for on
the morrow Brevard was going down, disguised, to Louisville, in one of
the two monoplanes, to attend a final secret meeting of the North-middle
Section Committee. From this he would proceed to the refuge near Port
Colborne, Ontario.

"Let us make that our meeting-place, one week from tonight," said
Gabriel, "in case anything happens. Should we be detected, or should any
accident befall, we must have some time and place to rally by. Is my
suggestion taken?"

They all agreed, after some discussion.

"But," added Mrs. Grantham, "let's hope we're still secure here, for a
while. It doesn't seem possible they could find us _here_, in this broad
mountain wilderness!"

Brevard, meanwhile, was spreading out diagrams and plans.

"The plant at Niagara," said he. "Gabriel, study this, now, as you never
yet have studied anything! For on your intimate knowledge of these
plans--which, by the way, have been obtained only at the cost of eight
lives of our comrades, and through adventures which alone would make a
wonderful book--depends everything. With all communications cut, and
troops kept away, and our own people storming the works, you will yet
fail, Gabriel, unless you know every building, every courtyard, wall and
passage, every door and window, almost, I might say. For the place is
more than a manufacturing plant. It's a fortress, a city in itself, a
wonderful, gigantic center to the whole web of world-domination!

"So now, to the plans!"

For hours, while Gabriel took notes and listened keenly, asked questions
and made minute memoranda, Brevard explained the situation at the great
Air Trust works. The others looked on, listened, and from time to time
made suggestions; but for the most part they kept silent, unwilling to
disturb this most important work.

Carefully and with painstaking accuracy he showed Gabriel how the plant
now embraced more than two square miles of territory around the Falls,
all guarded by tremendous barricades mounting machine-guns and
search-lights. On both sides of the river this huge monster had
squatted, effectually shutting out all sight of the Falls and depriving
the people of their birthright of beauty, at the same time that it had
harnessed the vast waterpower to the task of enslaving the world.

"From the Grand Trunk steel arch bridge up to and including the former
plant of the Niagara Falls Power Company," said Brevard, "you see the
plant extends. And, on the Canadian side--or what was the Canadian,
before 'we' absorbed Canada--it stretches from the Ontario Power
Company's works to those of the Toronto-Niagara Power Company, including
both. In addition to having absorbed these, it has taken over the
Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company, the Canadian
Power Company and half a dozen others, and has, as you see, established
its central offices and plant on Goat Island.

"Here Flint and Waldron have what may be called a citadel within a
citadel--twelve acres of administration buildings, laboratories (in
charge of your old friend Herzog, by the way!) and experimental works,
including also the big steel chambers, vacuum-lined, where they are
already storing their liquid oxygen to be turned into their pipe-lines
and tank-cars. This Goat Island central plant will be the real kernel in
the nut, Gabriel. Once _that_ is gone, you'll have ripped the heart out
of the beast, smashed the vital ganglia, and given the world the
respite, the breathing-space it must have, to free itself!"

"And if I don't?" asked Gabriel. "If anything happens to upset our
blockading tactics, or if our attacking forces are defeated or our
aeroplanes shot down, what then?"

"Then," said Brevard, slowly, "then the world had better die than
survive under the abominable slavery now impending. Already the
pipe-lines have been laid to Buffalo, Cleveland, Albany and Scranton.
Already they're under way to New York City itself, and to Cincinnati.
Already other plants have been projected for Chicago, Denver, San
Francisco and New Orleans, to say nothing of half a dozen in the Old
World. At this present moment, as we all sit here in this quiet room on
this remote mountain-slope, the world's air is being cornered! All the
atmospheric nitrogen is planned for, by Flint and Waldron, to pass under
their control--and with it, every crop that grows. All the oxygen will
follow. They're already having their domestic-service apparatus
manufactured--their cold-pipe radiators, meters, evaporators and
respirators. I tell you, comrades, this thing is close upon us, not as a
theory, now, but as a terrible, an inconceivably ghastly reality!

"Even as we talk this thing over, those devils in human form are at
work impoverishing the atmosphere, the very basis of all life. My
oxymeter, today, showed a diminution of .047 per cent. in the amount of
free oxygen in the air right on this mountain. And their plant is hardly
running yet! Wait till they get it under full swing--wait till their
pipe-lines and tanks and instruments and all their vast, infernal
apparatus of exploitation and enslavement are in operation! Even in a
week from now, or less, by the time you issue the call, Gabriel, you may
see wretches gasping in vain for breath, in some dark alley of Niagara
where the air is being drained!"

"Oh, devilish and infernal plot against the world!" said Gabriel,
bitterly. "Yet in essence, after all, no different from the system of
ten years ago, which kept food and shelter, light and fuel, under lock
and key--and made the dollar the only key to fit the lock! Yet this
seems worse, somehow; and though I die for it, my last supreme blow
shall be against such unutterable, such murderous villainy! So then,
comrades--"

He paused, suddenly, as Kate laid a hand on his arm.

"Hark! What's that?" she whispered.

Outside, somewhere, a sound had made itself heard. Then on the porch, a
loose board creaked.

Gabriel sprang to his feet. The others stood up and faced the door.

"In heaven's name, what's that outside?" demanded Craig.

On the instant, a heavy foot crashed through the panels of their door.
The door, burst open, flew back.

In the aperture, stood a man, in aviator's dress, with another dimly
visible behind him. Both these men held long, blue-nosed,
oxygen-bullet-shooting revolvers levelled at the little group around the
table.

"My God! Air Trust spies!" cried Grantham, pale as death.

"Hands up, you!" shouted the man in the doorway, with a wild triumph in
his voice. "You're caught, all of you! Not a move, you ---- ---- ----!
Hands up!"




CHAPTER XXXI.

ESCAPE!


Quick as thought, at sound of the imperative summons and sight of the
levelled weapons, Gabriel swept up most of the papers and crammed them
into the breast of his loose flannel shirt, then dashed the lamp to the
floor, extinguishing it. The room grew dark, for now the fire had burned
down to hardly more than glowing coals.

There was no panic; the men did not curse, neither did the women scream.
As though the tactic had already been agreed on, Craig tipped the table
up, making a kind of barricade; and over it Grantham's revolver,
snatched from his belt, spat viciously.

It all happened in a moment.

The foremost spy grunted, coughed and plunged forward. As he fell, he
fired his terrible weapon.

The bullet--a small, thin metal shell, filled with a secret chemical and
liquid oxygen--went wild. It struck the wall, some feet to the left of
the fireplace, and instantly the wood burst into vivid flame. Flesh
would crisp to nothing, solid stone would crumble, metal would gutter
and run down, under that awful incandescence.

Again Grantham's revolver barked, while Bevard tugged at his own, which
had unaccountably got stuck in its holster. But this second shot missed.
And even as Grantham's bullet snicked a long splinter from the
door-jamb, the second spy fired.

Brevard's choking cry died as the gushing flame enveloped him. He
staggered, flung up both arms and fell stone dead, the life seared clean
out of him, as a lamp sears a moth.

Gasping, blinded, the others scattered; and for the third time--while
the room now glowed with this unquenchable blossoming of flame--Grantham
shot.

The spy's body burst into a sheaf of fire. Up past the lintel streamed
the burning swirl. Mute and annihilated, his charred body dropped beside
that of his mate.

The total time from challenge to complete victory had not exceeded ten
seconds.

"I exploded some of his cartridges!" choked Grantham. shielding his wife
from the glare, while Gabriel protected Catherine.

"His--his cartridge belt!" gasped Craig.

"Yes! And now, out--out of here!"

"Brevard? We must save his body!" cried Gabriel, pointing.

"Impossible!" shouted Grantham. "That hellish compound will burn for
hours! And in three minutes this whole place will be a roaring furnace!
Out of here--out--away! We must save the hangar, at all hazards!"

Against their will, but absolutely unable to approach the now
wildly-roaring fire on the floor that marked the spot where Brevard had
fallen in the Battle with Plutocracy, the comrades quickly retreated.

Raging fire now hemmed them on three sides. Their only avenue of escape
was through the eastern windows, eight or ten feet above the ground.
Hastily snatching up such of the plans and papers as he had not already
secured--and some of these already were beginning to smoke and turn
brown, in the infernal heat--Gabriel shielded Catherine's retreat. The
others followed.

Craig and Grantham first jumped from the windows, then caught Mrs.
Grantham and Catherine as Gabriel helped them to escape. He himself was
the last to leave the room, now a raging furnace. Together they all ran
from the building, and none too soon; for suddenly the roof collapsed, a
tremendous burst of crackling flames and sheaved sparks leaped high
above the tree-tops, and the walls came crashing in.

In the welter of incandescence, where now only the stone chimney
stood--and this, too, was already cracking and swaying--Brevard had
found his tomb, together with the two Air Trust spies. All that
pleasant, necessary place was now a mass of white-hot ruin; all those
books and pictures now had turned to ash.

The five remaining comrades paused by the hangar, and looked mournfully
back at the still-leaping volcano of destruction.

"Poor Brevard! Poor old chap!" said Craig. He peered at the women.
Neither one was crying--they were not that type--but both were pale.

"I don't feel that way," said Gabriel. "Brevard is not to be pitied.
He's to be envied! He died in the noblest war we can conceive--the war
for the human race! And his last act was to take part in a battle that
stamped out two vipers, Air Trust spies, who would have joyed to burn us
all alive!"

[Illustration: The spy's body burst into a sheaf of fire.]

"Thank God, I got the Hell-hounds!" muttered Craig. "Two less of Slade's
infamous army, anyhow." Though Gabriel knew it not, the first one to
fall was the same who had battled with him in the trap at Rochester, the
same who had trailed him when he, Gabriel, had left the Federal pen. So
one score, at least, was settled.

"They're gone, anyhow," said Gabriel, "and five of us still live--and
I've still got the plans and all. Moreover, the monoplanes are safe. The
quicker we get away from here, now, the better. Away, and to our last
remaining refuge near Port Colborne, on the shores of Lake Erie. Other
Air Trust forces may be here, before morning. We must get away!"

A frightful shock awaited them when, entering the hangar--eager now to
escape at once from the scene of the tragedy--they beheld their
aeroplanes.

By the ruddy light which shone in through the wide doors, from the fire,
they saw long strips and tatters of canvas hanging from the 'planes.

"Smashed! Broken! Wrecked!" cried Gabriel, starting back aghast.

The others stared. Only too true; the monoplanes were practically
destroyed. Not only had the spies, before attacking the refuge, slashed
the 'planes to rags, but they had also partly dismantled the motors.
Bits of machinery lay scattered on the floor of the hangar.

Stunned and unable to gather speech or coherent thought, the five
Socialists stood staring. Then, after a moment, Craig made shift to
exclaim bitterly:

"A good job, all right! The curs must have got in at the window, and
spent an hour in this work. Whatever happened, they didn't intend we
should have any means of retreat--for of course it's out of the question
for anybody to get away from here through the forest over the ridges
and down the cliffs!"

"They meant to trap us, this way, that's certain," added Gabriel. "There
surely will be others of the same breed, here before morning. They must
not find us here!"

"But Gabriel, how shall we escape?" asked Catherine, her face illumined
by the leaping flames of the bungalow.

"How! In their own machine! The machine that Slade and the Air Trust
secret-service gave them, to come here and catch or murder us!"

"By the Almighty! So we will!" cried Grantham. "Come on, let's find it!"

The little party hurried off toward the landing-ground, a cleared and
levelled space further up the mountainside. The light of the burning
bungalow helped show them their path; and Craig had also taken an
electric flash-lamp from the hangar. With this he led the way.

"Right! There it is!" suddenly exclaimed Gabriel, pointing. Craig
painted a brush of electric light over the vague outlines of the Air
Trust machine, a steel racer of the latest kind.

"A Floriot biplane," said he. "Will hold two and a passenger. Familiar
type. I guess all of us, here, can operate it."

They all--even the women--could. For you must understand that after the
Great Massacres had foreshown the only possible trend the Movement could
take, practically all the leaders in the work had studied aeronautics,
also chemistry, as most essential branches of knowledge in the
inevitable war.

"Two, and a passenger," repeated Gabriel, as though echoing Craig's
words. "Who goes first?"

"You!" said Grantham. "You and Catherine, with Craig to bring the
machine back. You're needed, now, at the front--imperatively needed.
Freda and I," gesturing at his wife, "will hold the fort, here--will
keep watch over our dead, over poor old Brevard, the first to fall in
this great, final battle!"

A spirited argument followed. Gabriel insisted on being left for the
second trip. A compromise was made by having him get the two women out
of danger, at once, leaving Craig and Grantham on the mountain.

"I'll send Hazen or Keyes back with the 'plane, for you," said he, as he
climbed into the driving seat, after the passengers had been stowed.
"That will be tomorrow night. Of course, we daren't fly by day. And
mind," he added, adjusting his spark and throttle, "mind you meet me
with this very same machine, safe and sound, at the Lake Erie refuge!"

"Why this same machine?" inquired Craig.

"Why? Because I intend to use this, and no other, in the final attack.
Could poetic justice be finer than that the Air Trust works be destroyed
with the help of one of their own 'planes?"

No more was said, save brief good-byes. Those were times when
demonstrativeness, whether in life or death, was at a discount. A
hand-clasp and a few last instructions as to the time and place of
meeting, sufficed. Then Gabriel pressed the button of the self-starter
and opened the throttle.

With a sudden gusty chatter, the engine caught. A great wind sprang up,
from the roaring, whirling blades. The Floriot rolled easily forward,
speeded up, and gathered headway.

Gabriel suddenly rotated the rising-plane. The great gull soared,
careened and took the air with majestic power. The watchers on the
mountain-side saw its hooded lights, that glowed upon its compass and
barometric-gauge, slowly spiralling upward, ever upward, as Gabriel
climbed with his two passengers.

Then the lights sped forward, northward, in a long tangent, and, as they
swiftly diminished to mere specks, the echo of a farewell hail drifted
downward from the black and star-dusted emptiness above.

Craig turned to Grantham, when the last gleam of light had faded in a
swift trajectory.

"God grant they reach the last remaining refuge safely!" said he, with
deep emotion. "And may their flight be quick and sure! For the fate of
the world, its hope and its salvation from infinite enslavement, are
whirling through the trackless wastes of air, to-night!"




CHAPTER XXXII.

OMINOUS DEVELOPMENTS.


The first intimation that Flint and Waldron had of any opposition to
their plans, of any revolt, of any danger, was at quarter past three on
the afternoon of October 8th, 1925. All that afternoon, busy with their
final plans for the immediate extension of their system, they had been
going over certain data with Herzog, receiving reports from branch
managers and conferring with the Congressional committee that--together
with Dillon Slade, their secret-service tool, now also President
Supple's private secretary--they had peremptorily summoned from
Washington to receive instructions.

In the more than four years that had passed since they had put Gabriel
behind bars--years fruitful in strikes and lockouts, in prostitutions of
justice, in sluggings and crude massacres--both men had altered notably.

Though the National Censorship now no longer permitted any cartooning of
a "seditious" nature, i.e., representing any of the Air Trust notables,
old Flint's features tempted the artist's pencil more than ever. Save
for a little white fringe of hair at the back of his head, he had become
almost bald, thus adding greatly to his strong suggestion of a vulture.
His face was now more yellow and shrunken than ever, due to a rather
heavier consumption of his favorite drug, morphine; his nose had hooked
more strongly, and his one gold tooth of other days now had two more to
bear it company. His eyes, too, behind his thick pince-nez, had grown
more shifty, cold and cruelly calculating. If it be possible to conceive
a fox, a buzzard and a jackal merged in one, old Isaac Flint today
represented that unnatural and hideous hybrid.

Now, as he stood facing "Tiger" Waldron, in the inner and sancrosanct
office of the Air Trust plant at Niagara--the office that even the
President of these United States approached with deference and due
humility--the snarl on his face revealed the beast-soul of the man.

"Damnation!" he was saying, as he shook a newly-received aerogram at his
partner. "What's this, I'd like to know? What does this mean? All
telegraphic communication west of Chicago has suddenly stopped, and from
half a dozen points in the Southern States news is coming in that
railway service is being interrupted! See here, Waldron, this won't do!
Your part of the business has always been to carry on the publicity end,
the newspaper end, the moulding of public opinion and political thought,
_and_ the maintenance of free, clear rail and aero communication
everywhere, all over the world. But now, all at once, see here?"

Waldron raised red, bleared eyes at his irate partner. He, too, was more
the beast than four years ago. No less the tiger, now, but more the pig.
High, evil living had done its work on him. An unhealthy purple suffused
his heavily-jowled face. Beneath his eyes, sodden bags of flesh hung
pendant. His lips, loose and lascivious, now sucked indolently at the
costly cigar he was smoking as he sat leaning far back in his
desk-chair. And so those two, angry accuser and indifferent accused,
faced each other for a moment; while, incessant, dull, mighty, the
thunders of the giant cataract mingled with the trembling diapason of
the stupendous turbines in the rock-hewn caverns where old Niagara now
toiled in fetters, to swell their power and fling gold into their
bottomless coffers.

"See here!" Flint repeated angrily, once more shaking the dispatches at
his mate. "Even our wireless system, all over the west and southwest,
has quit working! And you sit there staring at me like--like--"

"That'll do, Flint!" the younger man retorted in a rough, hoarse voice.
"If there's any trouble, I'll find it and repair it. Very well. But I'll
not be talked to in any such way. Damn it, you can't speak to me Flint,
as if I were one of the people! If you own half the earth, I'll have you
understand I own the other half. So go easy, Flint--go damned easy!"

Malevolently he eyed the old man's beast-like face. The scorn and
dislike he had conceived for Flint, years ago, when Flint had failed to
win back Catherine to him, had long grown keener and more bitter.
Waldron took it as a personal affront that Flint, apparently so worn and
feeble, could still hang on to life and brains enough to dominate the
enterprise. A thousand times, if once, he had wished Flint well dead and
buried and out of the way, so that he, Waldron, could grasp the whole
circle of the stupendous Air Trust. This, his supreme ambition, had been
constantly curbed by Flint's survival; and as the months and years had
passed, his hate had grown more deep, more ugly, more venomous.

"Why, curse it," Waldron often thought, "the old dope has taken enough
morphine in his lifetime to have killed a hundred ordinary men! And yet
he still clings on, and withers, and grows yellow like an old dead leaf
that will not drop from the tree! When _will_ he drop? When _will_
Father Time pick the despicable antique? My God, is the man immortal?"

Such being the usual tenor of his thoughts, concerning Flint, small
wonder that he took the old man's chiding with an ill grace, and warned
him pointedly not to continue it. Now, facing the Billionaire, he fairly
stared him out of countenance. An awkward silence followed. Both heard,
with relief, a rapping at the office door.

"Come!" snapped Flint.

A clerk appeared, with a yellow envelope in hand.

"Another wireless, sir," said he.

Flint snatched it from him.

"Send Herzog and Slade, at once," he commanded, as he ripped the
envelope.

"Well, more trouble?" insolently drawled "Tiger" happy in the paling of
the old man's face and the sudden look of apprehension there.

For all answer, Flint handed him the message. Waldron read:

Southern and Gulf States all seemingly cut off from every kind of
communication this P.M. Can get no news. Is this according to your
orders? If not, can you inform me probable cause? I ask
instructions. "K."

Silence, a minute, then Waldron whistled, and began pulling at his thick
lower lip, a sure sign of perturbation.

"By the Almighty, Flint" said he. "I--maybe I was wrong just now, to be
so confoundedly touchy about--about what you said. This--certainly looks
odd, doesn't it? It _can't_ be a series of coincidences! There must be
something back of it, all. But--but _what_? Rebellion is out of the
question, now, and has been for a long time. Revolution? The way we're
organized, the very idea's an absurdity! But, if not these, what?"

Flint stared at him with drug-contracted eyes.

"Yes, that's the question," he rapped out. "What can it mean? Ah,
perhaps Slade can tell us," he added, as the secret-service man quietly
entered through a private door at the rear of the office.

"Tell you what, gentlemen?" asked Slade, smirking and rubbing his hands.

"The meaning of that, and that, and _that_!" snapped old Flint,
thrusting the telegrams at the newcomer.

"Hm!" grunted the secret-service man, as he glanced them over. "That's
damned odd! But it's of no real moment. If--if there's really any
trouble, any outbreak or what not, of course it can't amount to
anything. All you have to do is order the President to call out the
troops, and--"

"Yes, I can order him, all right," snarled Flint, "but in case all our
wires are down and all our wireless plants put out of commission, to say
nothing of our transport service interrupted, what then? There's no
doubt in _my_ mind, Slade, that another upheaval is upon us. The fact
that we stamped out the 1918 and 1922 uprisings, and that rivers ran red
and city streets were flushed with blood, apparently hasn't made any
impression on the cattle! Damn it all, I say, _can't_ you keep things
quiet? _Can't_ you?"

In a very frenzy he paced the office, his face twitching, his bony
fingers snapping with the extremity of his agitation. Suddenly he faced
Slade.

"See here, you!" he exclaimed. "This certainly means another uprising.
It can't mean anything else! And you've allowed it, you hear? No, no,
don't deny the fact!" he cried, as the detective tried to oppose a word
of self-defense. "It's your fault, at last analysis; and if anything
happens, you and the President, Supple, have got to answer to me,
personally, do you hear? You've got to pay!"

"Pay, and with devilish big interest, too!" growled "Tiger," fixing his
bleared, savage eyes on Slade.

"What did I make that man President for, anyhow?" snarled Flint, "if not
to do my bidding and keep things still? Why did I put you in as his
private secretary, if not to have you watch him and see that he _did_ do
my bidding? Why did I have Congress pass all those bills and things,
except to give you the weapons and tools to hold the lid on?

"You've had a huge army and a conscripted militia given you; and
hundreds of wireless plants, and military roads and war-equipment beyond
all calculating. You've had thousands of spies organized and put under
your control. At your suggestion I've had all political power taken away
from the dogs--and everything done that you've asked for--and this,
_this_ is the kind of work you do!"

Livid with rage, the old Billionaire stood there shaking by his desk,
his face a fearful mask of passions and evil lusts for vengeance and
power. Slade, recognizing his master, even as President Supple on more
than one occasion had been forced in terrible personal interviews to
recognize him, said no word; but in the secret-service man's eyes a
brutal gleam flashed its message of hate and loathing. Foul as Slade
was, he balked at times, in face of this man's cruel and naked savagery.

"I tell you," continued Flint, now having recovered his breath, "I tell
you, you're worse than useless, you and your President, ha!
ha!--President Puppet, indeed! Take that great Smoky Mountain clue, for
instance! On the rumor that the ring-leaders of the swine were up there,
somewhere, in the North Carolina mountains, you sent your two best men.
And what's the latest news? What have you to tell me? _You_ know! Other
airmen of yours have just reported that nothing can be found but ruins
of the Socialist refuge, there--nothing but those, and the half-melted
vanadium steel identification-tags of your best scouts! _And_ their
machine is gone--and with it, the birds we wanted! Then, close on the
heels of this, all wires go flat, all wireless breaks down, all rails
are interrupted, and--and Hell's to pay!" Fair in Slade's face he shook
his trembling first.

"Urrh! You devilish, impotent faker! You four-flusher! You toy
detective! You and your President, too, aren't worth the liquid oxygen
to blow you to Hades! See here, Slade, you get out on this job, now, and
do it damned quick, you understand, or there'll be _some_ shake-up in
your office and in the White House, too. When I buy and pay for tools, I
insist that the tools work. If they don't--!"

He snatched up a pencil from the desk, broke it in half and threw the
pieces on the floor.

"Like that!" said he, and stamped on them.

Waldron nodded approval.

"Just like that," he echoed, "and then some!"

"Go, now!" Flint commanded, pointing at the door. "Inside an hour, I
want some reports, and I want them to be satisfactory. If you and Supple
can't get things open again, and start the troops and machine-guns
before then, look out! That's all I've got to say. Now, _go_!"




CHAPTER XXXIII.

"NOW COMES THE HOUR SUPREME."


Hardly had the secret-service man taken his leave, slinking away like a
whipped cur, yet with an ugly snarl that presaged evil, when Herzog
appeared.

"Come here," said Flint, curtly, heated with his burst of passion.