kitten rolling upon the ground. Over and over he tumbled, while Pant, limping painfully, crept away.

Throwing a glance about him, Johnny saw Tom Stick’s house to the right of him, and remembered how it had been built around a cage.

“Door’s still on the hinges and open,” he muttered. “If I only can!”

Six steps he took, and with each step, spilled a drop of the precious fluid. Then, with a breathless leap, he was inside the dwarf’s house. Dashing the vial against the wall, he caught his breath at the thought that the cat might trap him here; then with a wilder leap than before, he cleared the door and breathed the outer air.

He was not a second too soon. Hot on the trail of that burst of perfume, the cat flashed past him and into the house that was a cage.

Johnny banged the door shut and barred it, then sank down upon the ground for a quiet breath.

Soon he rose and, making his way to the bushes, examined the spot where the black cat had pinned Pant to the ground.

As he flashed a light about, he uttered a low exclamation, and stooping, picked up the bent and lenseless ruins of Pant’s glasses. He dropped these a second later to gather up a mass of fine wires and strangely tangled tubes and peculiar instruments. These he crammed into his jacket pocket, and, having cast one more glance about him, hastened away to find the twins.

CHAPTER XVIII HOW JOHNNY GOT THE RING

The first red streaks of dawn were appearing as Johnny sat down on the beam of a railroad bridge a quarter of a mile from the wreck.

It had been a strange, wild night. Many startling things had happened; many mysteries had been solved. Now that these mysteries were uncovered he had come down here to think.

Tom Stick was not one of the counterfeiters; he knew that now. Neither was the steam kettle cook, nor the conman with the ragged ear. The real culprits had attempted to cast the guilt upon them, that was all. The arch criminal, Black McCree, was dead. Jo-Jo, the elephant, had thrashed the life out of him when McCree had attempted to murder his master, the midget clown. The fat accomplice of Black McCree had confessed that his partner was that notorious criminal. He had denied having any knowledge of the working of that strange color-photo camera. Black McCree had chosen to 

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