looked in vain for the crimson flash. It was gone. And now, for the first time she realized that she did not know the direction whence it had come.

After leaving Gwen, Johnny Thompson made his way cautiously along the uneven embankment. Now his eye caught a gleam that appeared to come from the great cat’s eyes. It proved but the reflection of some polished object. Again he heard a rattle among splintered boards, only to find a colored roustabout climbing from the pile of broken lumber under which he had been buried. Johnny was just beginning to believe that he had missed both the black beast and the twins when something leaped at him out of the darkness.

It took him but a second to realize that this was not a wild beast, but a man; the king of the counterfeiters.

Taken by surprise, he went down with the man upon his back. At the same instant he caught the gleam of a knife in the outlaw’s hand. There could be not one shadow of doubt that he meant murder.

A terrible struggle followed. The man, fully fifty pounds heavier than Johnny, was at the same time agile and strong. Now the knife was poised in air, only to be dashed to the ground. Now Johnny secured a half-nelson. Now his hold was broken. And now Johnny was thrown to earth with such force as to render him half unconscious. Struggling against a terrible dizziness, he fought but feebly. The end seemed to have come.

But, at that moment, there came a shrill voice:

“I’m here, Johnny Thompson! I’m here!”

One moment the knife poised above his chest; the next a diminutive figure attached itself to the arm that held the knife and sent it whirling to one side.

“Tom Stick, the midget clown!” gasped Johnny, renewing his struggle for freedom.

Dimly in the half light, he saw what followed. Turning all his attention to this new enemy, the counterfeiter appeared to seize the dwarf by the heels and dash him with terrible force against the ground.

Then, almost instantly, a great, brown bulk lumbered in out of the blackness, and at that instant, with a gurgling cry, the counterfeiter appeared to rise in air to be sent crashing again and again against the side of the embankment.

“Jo-Jo, the French elephant, Tom Stick’s friend!” cried Johnny, leaping to his feet to bend over the prostrate form of his little defender.

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