His friend nodded, listening to the sound of blows battering the outer door.  “They’ll have it down in another minute.  We’ve got to burn the wind seven ways for Sunday.”

“What I’d like to know is whether there are two entrances to this rat-trap.  Do you happen to know, Nell?” asked Fraser of his sister.

“Three,” she answered promptly.  “There’s a back door into the court and a trap-door to the roof.  That’s the way I came.”

“And it’s the way we’ll go.  I might a-known you’d know all about it give you a quarter of a chance,” her brother said admiringly.  “We’ll duck through the roof and let Mr. Dunke hold the sack.  Lead the way, sis.”

She guided them along another passageway and up some stairs to the second story.  The trap-door that opened to the flat roof was above the bed about six feet.  Neill caught the edges of the narrow opening, drew himself up, and wriggled through.  Fraser lifted his sister by the waist high enough for Larry to catch her hands and draw her up.

“Hurry, Steve,” she urged.  “They’ve broken in.  Hurry, dear.”

The ranger unlocked his prisoner’s handcuffs and tossed them up to the Tennessean.

“Get a move on you, Mr. Struve, unless you want to figure in a necktie party,” he advised.

But the convict’s flabby muscles were unequal to the task of getting him through the opening.  Besides which, his wounded hand, tied up with a blood-soaked rag, impeded him.  He had to be pulled from above and boosted from behind.  Fraser, fit to handle his weight in wildcats, as an admirer had once put it, found no trouble in following.  Steps were already heard on the stairs below when Larry slipped the cover to its place and put upon it a large flat stone which he found on the roof for that purpose.  The fugitives crawled along the roof on their hands and knees so as to escape the observation of the howling mob outside the house.  Presently they came into the shadows, and Nell rose, ran forward to a little ladder which led to a higher roof, and swiftly ascended.  Neill, who was at her heels, could not fail to note the light supple grace with which she moved.  He thought he had never seen a more charming woman in appearance.  She still somehow retained the slim figure and taking ways of a girl, in conjunction with the soft rounded curves of a present-day Madonna.

Two more roofs were crossed before they came to another open trap-door.  A lamp in the room below showed it to be a bedroom with two cots in it.  Two children, one of them a baby, were asleep in these.  A sweet-faced woman past middle age looked anxiously up with hands clasped together as in prayer.

“Is it you, Nellie?” she asked.

“Yes, mother, and Steve, and his friend.  We’re all right.”

Fraser dropped through, and his sister let herself down into his arms.  Struve followed, and was immediately handcuffed.  Larry put back the trap and fastened it from within before he dropped down.