mill. After a little he saw, sitting on the other side of the lantern, a

man who gazed steadily at him, and whose face, even in the shadows, seemed familiar. A moment later he realized that the man was John Joyce.

The discovery was not a pleasant one. Joyce and he had been enemies for a considerable time, owing mainly to the fact that both were paying attentions to a certain young woman who showed decided partiality for Kollock. In a moment of passion Joyce had sworn to “get” Curly, and the latter had jeered at him. He did not jeer now. The best he could do was to summon a forced smile.

“You’ll grin out o’ the other side of your mouth afore I git done with you, you spyin’ scum,” observed the red-haired individual acrimoniously. “What are you doin’ here?”

“None o’ your business!” retorted Kollock promptly. “Where’s Bill?”

“Better keep a civil tongue in your head,” snarled Joyce. “How come you sneakin’ around this mill to-night? Who put you wise to what’s goin’ on?”

Possessed of only a small fund of diplomacy, Curly saw a chance to make his enemy writhe, and at once took it, regardless of all other considerations.

“Never you mind who put me wise,” he retorted. “I’m on, all right. I know you’re goin’ to set fire to the mill to-night, an’, what’s more, I know who put you up to it--see? Git that through your dome? I’ve got evidence stowed away--in a safe place, too--that’ll send somebody to Thomaston Prison for a nice little bit. Get me?”

All of this was not strictly true, but the young riverman could not pass up the chance to make Joyce shiver. A moment later he more than regretted the impulse.

“Little Johnny-on-the-spot, ain’t you?” snarled the red-headed man, when he had partially recovered from the shock. “You made a nice bull, though, exposin’ your cards before the show-down.”

His jaws came together with a snap, and, rising suddenly to his feet, he dropped on one knee beside Curly. In another second he had thrust a lump of waste between the helpless riverman’s jaws, and tied it down with a dirty strip of cloth. Then he resumed his seat.

“Jest a little precaution against noise,” he said unpleasantly. “My pals are out in the yard, an’ I ain’t anxious for ’em to know I brung you in here. They think you’re a second watchman--see? I got sight o’ your face first an’ covered it up so nobody would know you was here. Bill’s down to Lynchburg, soused, an’ likely won’t show up till mornin’. This was to be the night for our little shindy, only, not havin’ no word yet, I was goin’ to give it up--till you come along. Now I think I’ll let things go ahead, word or no word. Get me, Steve?”

He arose, leering hideously, and Curly felt the perspiration begin to burst out all over his body. His wide-open eyes--the only part of him which could move--sought Joyce’s, but the fellow’s gaze, shifting continually, thwarted the attempt. Kollock noticed--just why he did not know--that the other’s face was deathly pale, and that his low forehead was covered with little beads of sweat. A second later Joyce picked up the lantern and moved lightly toward the door.

“Jest tell ’em that you saw me, an’ give ’em my regards,” he sneered over his shoulder, but his voice cracked on the last word, and, stumbling over a loose board in the floor, he disappeared.

For perhaps half a minute Curly lay absolutely still. Then the horror of what that human fiend meant to do struck him with full force, turning him cold and then hot as fire. He rolled over on his face, and, bracing both feet against the foundation of the saw, strained the splendid muscles of back and arm and shoulder as he had never strained them before. The ropes cracked a little, but held fast, biting deep into his flesh. He paid no heed to the pain. Again he strove with all his might to break those bonds. Again he failed. Joyce had done his work well.

He was still straining, twisting, and flinging himself about till every inch of his body seemed sore to the touch, when of a sudden the faint, light tang of something new in the air made him stop like a person paralyzed.

Smoke!

For a second he did not dare to breathe. Slowly, fearfully, he drew in the air. Then a smothered, inarticulate sound, half scream, half groan, echoed through the dark mill. It was smoke! The coward had kept his word and fired the building. No one would ever know. The flames were coming fast--fast. Presently they would reach him----

In a panic of horror he again cast himself here and there over the board floor, the sawdust sometimes muffling the thudding sound of his body. There was not one chance in a thousand that one would hear him. He stopped and listened, but detected no sound. A fresh puff of smoke made him gag. It was coming faster and faster, thicker and thicker.

Gasping for breath, he flung himself about again in a mad paroxysm of fear. Above the thudding noise of his own making he could hear the horrible, ominous crackling of flames. Crevices here and there began to be outlined in dull, glowing, changing red. He thought he heard the clanging of the primitive alarm, but he could not be sure.

Hither and thither he rolled, keeping up the motion without conscious volition, scraping, scratching, bumping against obstacles, but always blindly to get farther away from the consuming element beyond the partition.

At one time the lapping, gurgling sound of water struck on his dazed senses with the shock of the incredible. Then he realized that it came from beneath him, and knew that he must be in the portion of the mill built out over the river. A few inches of flooring was all that separated him from the cool, soothing touch of that water. The bitter irony of it ate into his soul like caustic, and brought a sudden rush of scalding tears to the stinging, smoke-blinded eyes.

The glow brightened, grew more vivid. A single tongue of flame slid through a crack, and began licking up the wall. The sight seemed to arouse Curly to fresh exertions. He flung himself furiously to one side, and by a strange chance he struck glancingly against the teeth of the circular saw, which cut his face cruelly and tore away the gag.

It took him a second or two to realize what had happened. Then from between his swollen lips a fierce, wild cry of desperate appeal rang out. It rose shrilly, piercingly, ended in a choke. He tried to cry again, but the smoke rushed into his lungs and turned the shout into a gruesome groan.

That smoke was pouring into the room in clouds now. The single tongue of flame had bred a score, casting a lurid light over the place, and driving black despair into the half-conscious brain of the hopeless victim.