backing among the Socialists and labor people.  Before proceeding further I want to know how far you will support me.

Am having him shadowed.  He cannot get away.  As yet he suspects nothing.  On receipt of your next, will take measures to put him away for a few months.  I know that, once he lands behind bars, his finish can be easily arranged.

     Trusting this information will prove satisfactory to you, and
     awaiting your further instructions, I am,

     Very truly yours,

     THE COSMOS AGENCY,

     Dillon F. Slade, Mgr.

Old Flint read this extraordinary communication twice through, then, raising his head, growled in his shrunken throat, for all the world like a wild beast.  His gold tooth, gleaming in the light, made his rictus of passion more venomous, more malevolent still.

“The—­the Hell-hound!” he stammered, his eyes narrowed with hate and rage.  “Oh, wait!  Wait till we land him!  And this—­this is the devil, the scum, that Kate, my daughter—­”

He could not finish; but, clutching at his sparse gray hair, fell to pacing the floor and mouthing execrations.  Had he been of the sanguine manner of body, he must inevitably have suffered an apoplexy.  Only his spare frame and bloodless type, due to the drug, saved his life, at that first shock of rage and hate.

Grown calmer, presently, he took quick action.  Seating himself at a desk in the corner of his bed-chamber—­a desk where some of his most important private matters had been put through—­he chose a sheet of blank paper, with no monogram, and wrote: 

     Take immediate action.  Will back you to the limit, and beyond.  Ten
     thousand bonus if you land him behind bars inside a week.  Stop at
     nothing, but get results.  F.

This he folded and put in an envelope which he addressed to Slade, and was about to seal, when another idea struck him.

“By God!” he exclaimed, smiting the desk.  “It won’t do to have this just some ordinary charge.  The thing has got to be disgraceful, unpardonable, hideous!

“There are two things to be considered now.  One is to ‘get’ him, in connection with that red book of my plans—­to head him off from making any possible trouble in the development of the Air Trust.

“The other is—­Kate!  Nothing catches a woman, like martyrdom.  If anything happens to this cur, and she suspects that I’ve done it, out of spite, all Hell can’t hold her.  I know her well enough for that.  No, this fellow has got to be put away on some charge that will absolutely and utterly ruin him, in her eyes, for good and all—­that will blast and wreck him, forever, with her.  Something that, when I tell her, will fill her with loathing and horror.  Something that will cause a terrible and complete revulsion of feeling in her, and bring her back to Waldron, as to a strong refuge in time of trouble.  Something that will crush and quell her, utterly cure her of those idiotic, school-girl notions of hers, and make her—­as she should be—­submissive to my will and my demands!”