"The cops," Stan said, hanging back. "I gotta tell the cops."

"There'll be time enough for that later," the man said smoothly. There was the faintest suggestion of haste in his voice.

"I oughtta wait," Stan mumbled, but the man pushed him gently into the car and Stan didn't argue. He lay down on the back seat, resting his throbbing head against the cushions and the side of the car. It was a big car, he thought vaguely. Like a rich man's sedan, with a glass partition between the driver and the passengers.

He heard a hissing sound from somewhere and the world started to gray out. And then he suddenly wondered how he could be taken home if the man didn't know where he lived....

Just before he blacked out altogether, a voice said:

"I'm your friend, Stan. Say it to yourself and say it over and over. I'm your friend. I saved your life."

"You're my friend," Stan repeated dully, his mind slipping slowly into a pool of throbbing blackness. "You saved my life...."

The last thing he saw was a quick glimpse of the city streets, the slowly rotting houses, and the bright splashes of green in the front lawns and the cottonwood trees.

CHAPTER II

His muscles were aching and sore and he felt sick to his stomach.

His eyes wouldn't focus at first and he stayed flat on his mattress and stared at the hazy outlines of the room. It was a funny kind of hospital. Nobody had bandaged his cuts—they were still caked with blood—and he still had on the same torn clothes that smelled of sweat and dirt.

Where had the man taken him?

He shook his head, trying to make out the details of the room, and his vision cleared a little.

The room didn't even come close to a hospital. It was more like a jail. There was the cot that he was sitting on and the washbasin and the flush bowl and the barred door at the entrance. Nothing else. No windows, no desk, no calendar, nothing. Just a small cell of gray, featureless metal.

He stood up, holding on to the cot for support, and touched the bars wonderingly. He hadn't done anything wrong, he thought. Not a damn thing!

"Guard! Guard!"

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