From her station Helen could see the whole tableau, all but the men on the stairs, where her vision was cut off.  She saw the dance girls crouched behind their partners or leaning far out from the wall with parted lips, the men eager yet fearful, the bartender with a half-polished glass poised high.  Then a quick movement across the hall suddenly diverted her absorbed attention.  She saw a man rip aside the drapery of the box opposite and lean so far out that he seemed in peril of falling.  He undertook to sight a weapon at Glenister, who was just passing from his view.  At her first glance Helen gasped—­her heart gave one fierce lunge, and she cried out.

The distance across the pit was so short that she saw his every line and lineament clearly; it was the brother she had sought these years and years.  Before she knew or could check it the blood call leaped forth.

“Drury!” she cried, aloud, at which he whipped his head about, while amazement and some other emotion she could not gauge spread slowly over his features.  For a long moment he stared at her without movement or sign while the drama beneath went on, then he drew back into his retreat with the dazed look of one doubting his senses, yet fearful of putting them to the test.  For her part, she saw nothing except her brother vanishing slowly into the shadows as though stricken at her glance, the curtains closing before his livid face—­and then pandemonium broke loose at her feet.

Glenister, holding his enemies at bay, had retreated to the double doors leading to the theatre.  His coup had been executed so quickly and with such lack of turmoil that the throng outside knew nothing of it till they saw a man walk backward through the door.  As he did so he reached forth and slammed the wide wings shut before his face, then turned and dashed into the press.  Inside the dance-hall loud sounds arose as the officers clattered down the stairs and made after their quarry.  They tore the barrier apart in time to see, far down the saloon, an eddying swirl as though some great fish were lashing through the lily-pads of a pond, and then the swinging doors closed behind Glenister.

Helen made her way from the theatre as she had come, unobserved and unobserving, but she walked in a dream.  Emotions had chased each other too closely to-night to be distinguishable, so she went mechanically through the narrow alley to Front Street and thence to her home.

Glenister, meanwhile, had been swallowed up by the darkness, the night enfolding him without sign or trace.  As he ran he considered what course to follow—­whether to carry the call to his comrades in town or to make for the Creek and Dextry.  The Vigilantes might still distrust him, and yet he owed them warning.  McNamara’s men were moving so swiftly that action must be speedy to forestall them.  Another hour and the net would be closed, while it seemed that whichever course he chose they would snare one or the other—­ either the