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CHAPTER XXXI. THE MASK OF THE RED BANDANNA. It had come by special delivery, an ill-written little note scrawled on cheap ruled paper torn from a tablet. If you want to know who killed Cunningham i can tell you. Meet me at the Denmark Bilding‘, room 419, at eleven to-night. Come alone. One who knows. Kirby studied the invitation cureâ€" fully. Was it genuine? Or was it 3. Plant? He was no handwriting’exâ€" pert, but he had a feeling that it_wgis a disguised script. There is an innnit- able looseness of design in the chirp- graphy of an illiterate person. He did not find here the awkwardness of the inexpert; rather the elaborate imita- tion of an amateur ignoramus. Yet he was not sure. He could give no definite reason for this fancy. And in the end he tossed it over- board. He would keep the appoint- ment and see what came of it. More- over, he would keep it alooncept for a friend handing under the left arm at his side. Kirby had brought no revolver with him to Denver. 0c- casionally he carried one on the range to frighten coyotes and to kill rattlers. But he knew where he could borrow 011521 and he proceeded to do _so. Not that there was any danger in meeting the unknown correspondent. Kirby did not admit that for a mo- ment. There are people so constituted that they revel in the mysterious. They wrap their most common actions in hints of reserve and weighty silence. Perhaps this man was one of them. There was no danger whatever. No- body had any reason to wish him ser- ious ill. Yet Kirby took a .45 with him when he set out for the Den- mark Building. He did it because that strange sixth sense of his had warned him to do so. During the day he had examined the setting for the night’s adventure. He had been to the Denmark Building and scanned it inside and out. He had gone up to the fourth floor and looked at the exterior of Room 419. The office door had printed on it this design: The Denmark Building is a little out of the heart of the Denver business district. It; was built far uptown at a time when real estate was booming. Adjoining it is the Rockford Building. The two dominate a neighborhood of squat two-story. stores and rooming- houses. In dull seasons the offices in the two big landmarks are not always filled with tenants. The elevators in the Denmark had ceased running hours since. Kirby took the narrow stairs which wound round the elevator shaft. He trod the iron treads very slowly, very softly. He had no Wish to advertise his pres- ence. If there was to be any explo- sive surprise, he did not want to be at the receiving end of it. THE GOLD HILL MILLING & MINING COMPANY But when Kirby tried the door he found it locked. Kirby waited to listen. He heard no faintest sound to break the stillness. Again his foot found the lowest tread and he crept upward. In the daytime he had laughed at the caution which had led him to borrow a weapon from an acquaintance at the stockyards. But now every sense shouted danger. He would not go back. but each for- ward step was taken with infinite can. And his care availed him nothing. A lifted foot struck an empty soap Sageriqr He reached the second storey, cross- ed the landing, and began the mth flight The place was dark as a mid- night pit. At the third floor its dark- ness was relieved slightly by a ray of light from a transom far down the corridor. is the best at any priceâ€"Try The Salvation Army 297 George St. Toronto FGSTEP. HGMES For BOYS and scl: ada angied Traifis age. S for Imu‘ Further to the finest Japans, GREEN TEA information GIRLS (Copyright Thomas Allen). -BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINB box with a clatter to wake the seven sleepers. Instantly he knew it had been put there for him to stumble over. A strong searchlight flooded the stairs and focussed on him. He caught a momentary glimpse of a featureless face standing out above the lightâ€"~21 face that was nothing but a red bandanna handkerchief with slits in it for eyesâ€"and a pair of feet below at the top of the stairway. The searchlight winked out. There was a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder. A second time the pocket flash found Kirby. It found him crouched low and reaching for the .45 under his arm. The booming of the revolver above reverberated down the pit of the stairway: Arrow-swift, with the lithe case of a wild thing from the forest, Kirby ducked round the corner for safety. He did not wait there, but took the stairs down three at a stride. Not till he had reached the ground floor did he stop_to]is_te_r_1 fqr the pursuit. No sound of following footsteps came to him. By some miracle of good luck he had escaped the ambush. It was characteristic of him that he did not fly Wildly into the night. His brain functioned normally, coolly. Whoever it was had led him into the trap had lost his chance. Kirby rea- soned that the assassin’s mind would be bent on making his own safe escape bef_o_re the_p01ice arrived. The cattleman waited, crouched be- hind an out-jutting pillar in the wall of the entrance. Every minute he ex- pected to see a furtive figure sneak past him into the street. His hopes were disappointed. It was nearly mid- night when two men, talking cheer- fully of the last gusher in the Buck- burnett field, emerged from the stair- way and passed into the street. They were tenants who had stayed late to do some unfinished business. There was a drug store in the build- ing, cornering on two streets. Kirby stepped into it‘ and asked a question of t_he >clerk at the prescription desk. “Is there more than one entrance to the Denmark Building?” V “No, sir.” The clerk corrected him- self. “Well, there’s another way out. The Producers & Developers Shale and Oil Company have a suite of of- fices that run into the Rockford Building. They’ve built an alley to connect between the two buildings. It’s on the fifth floor.” “Is it open? Could a man get out of the Denmark Building now by way of the Rockford entrance?” “Easiest in the world. All he’d have to do would be to cross the alley bridge, go down the Rockford stairs, and walk into the street.” Kirb wasted no more time. He knew t at the man who had tried to murder him had long since made good his getaway by means of the fifth- storey»bridggb§tweer} the bqildipgs._ As he walked back to the hotel where he was stopping his eyes and ears were busy. He took no dark-alley chances, but headed for the bright lights of the main streets where he would be safe from any possibility of a second ambush. His brain was as busy as his eyes. Who had planned this attempt on his life and so nearly carried it to suc- cess? Of one thing he was sure. The assassin who had flung the shots at him down the narrow stairway of the Denmark was the one who had mur- dered his uncle. The motive of the ambuscade was fear. Kirby was too hot on the trail that might send him to the gallows. The man had decided to play safe by following the old theory that dead men tell no tales. CHAPTER XXXII. JACK TAKES OFF ms COAT. Afterward, when Kirby Lane looked back upon the weeks spent in Denver trying to clear up the mysteries which surrounded the Whole affair of his uncle’s death, it seemed to him that be had been at times incredibly stupid. had bee) Nowhere The her f 11 ion to tm E436 v \Vf “You wait. I'll find her,” he prom- ised. “An’ if I can lay my hands on the man that’s done her a meanness, I’ll certainly give them hospital sharks 3. job patchin’ him up.” His gentle eyes had frozen, and the cold, hard light _in then}_was almost deadly. Kirby could not get it out of his head that James was responsible for the disappearance of the girl Yet he could not find a motive that would justify so much trouble on his cousin’s P33?- “I mean that J. C. might stand for at least two other men we know.” “Your cousin James?" “More likely Jack.” His mind beat back to fugitive mem- ories of Jack’s embarrassment when Esther’s name had been mentioned in connection with his uncle. Swiftly his brain began to piece the bits of evi- dence he had not understood the mean- ing of before. “Jack’s the man. You may depend on it. My uncle hadn’t anything to do with it. We jumped at that con- clusion too quick” he went on. “You think that she’s . . . with him?” “No. She’s likely out insthe country or in some small town. He’s havin’ her looked after. Probably an attack of conscience. Even if he’s selfish as the devil, he isn’t heartless.” He was at a moving-picture house on Curtis Street with Rose when the explanation popped into his mind. They were watching an old-fashioned melodrama in which the villain’s let- ter is laid at the door of the unfor- tunate hero. Kirby leaned toward Rose in the darkness and whispered, “Let’s go.” “Go where?” she wanted to know in surprise. They had seated themselves not five minutes before. “I’ve got a hunch. Come.” She rose, and on the way to the aisle brushed past several irritated ladies. Not till they were standing on the sidewalk outside did he tell her what was on his mind. “I want to see that note from my uncle you found in your sister’s desk," he said. She looked at -him and lau‘ghed a little. “You certainly want What you want when you want it! Do your hunches often take you like thatâ€"- right out of a perfectly good show you’ve paid your money to see?” “We've made a mistake. It was seein’ that fellow in the play that put me wise. Have you got the note with v They Vwalked up to the Pioneers’ Monument and from there over to her boarding-plaice: Kirby looked the little note over carefully. “What a Chump I was not to look at this before,” he said. “My uncle never wrote it.” “Never wrote it?” “Not his writin’ aâ€"tail." “Then whose is it?” “I can make a darn good guess; Can‘t you?" She “looked at him, eyes dilated, on the verge of a discovery. “You mean ‘3” v “No. It’s at home. If you like we’ll go and get it”, Going down to Buckinghamshire for ’ a garden party in the middle 01‘ a. Lon- don season, writes Sir James, we went down in London dress. I had white Spats on. During the afternoon my host asked a number of us to come and see the young pheasants; he said he had a very good Irish gamekeeper. We had hardly appeared in the pre- ‘serves When the keeper, much excited, cam-e rushing up to me. “Excuse me, sorr; come this way, come on, sorr, quickly this way. Get into the bushes where the ladies can‘t see yer!" He was dreadfully agitated and for fear he should have a. fit I fol- lowed him into the laurels. Leaning toward me, he Whispered: “I would not for the life of me the ladies saw yer, for yer’ve got the laste taste of yer dhrawers showin’ benathe yer trousers.” 7011 Among the good-humo-red bits of memorabilia that Sir James Denham has put into his Memoirs of the Mem- orable is this little tale of the effect that white Spatsâ€"when they were first introducedâ€"had on the simple minds of thoSe who were not prepared for them. Queer Belief. Among the old German settlers in Pennsylvania it was a popular belief that a boy could be cured of homesick- ness by placing salt in the hams of his trousers and making him look up the chimney. BUR FREE EQOKLEF Our little book describes our work and our excellent toilet preparations and contains many hints on the care of the Skin, Scalp. Hair, Hands and Com- The Spats Make a Showing. HISCOTT MD College St Waiters on skates bring téa to skat- s at some of the Swiss hotels where e winter sports are in full swing. Mlnard’a Liniment Heals Cuts (To be continued.) ISSUE INSTITUTE 7â€"’24. mail M 01 we have Eczema, ther skin . We re- 55. Warts, Toronto Dining out the other evening in the company of some two hundred musiâ€" cians of all sorts and sizes for lugu- brious as musicians often look and are" they do occasionally relax, among the guests was Sir Frederick Bridge, the evergreen organist of Westminster Abbey. After dinner, on being asked to speak, he. of course, expressed sur- prise at being expected to do anything but enjoy the pleasures of the table, and went on to say, “I suppose I must follow the example of the man who owned to having made a fiddle out of his own head, and added he had enough wood left for two more." One of his stories told oi! some Americans being shown round the purlieus of the Abbey, and in Dean's Yard where Sir Frederick still lives, a member of the party observed a particularly lean cat, lazily enjoying the sunshine. On ask- ing an elderly gentleman to whom the animal belonged, he was told it was Sir Frederick Bridge‘s. “Waal!” drawled the Yankee, “guess Sir Fred- erick ought to be prosecuted for cruelty to animals.” Perhaps you are not aware, sir, that this cat is almost as old as Sir Frederick himself,” was the reply, and it need hardly be added that it was the veteran musician who vouchsafed the information. 0! one thing I fezl sure: that some- thing outside of myself speaks to me, and holds me to duty; Warns, re- proves, and approves. It is good, for it requires me to be good; it is wise, Ifor it knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is to me a revelation oi‘. 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