“Here, you fellows,” he called dividing the men, “get outside and see what is doing.  You other men follow me.  I want you to see if everything’s all right up above.”

Meanwhile the tramp had gained the upper hallway and dashed past the room which he occupied.  Outside, in the hall, Del Mar and his men rushed up to the door of the room in which Elaine had been thrown.  It was locked and they broke in.  She was gone!

On into the next room they dashed, bearing down this door also.  There was Shorty, trussed up in his underclothes.  They hastened to release him.

“Where are they—­where’s the tramp?” demanded Del Mar angrily.

“I think I heard some one on the roof,” replied Shorty weakly.  He was right.  The tramp had managed to get through a scuttle on the roof.  Then he climbed down to the edge and began to let himself hand over hand down the lightning rod.

Reaching the ground safely, he scurried about to the back of the building.  There, tied, was the horse which Del Mar had ridden to the hunt.  He untied it, mounted and dashed off down the path through the woods, taking the shortest cut in the direction of Fort Dale.

Dusty and flecked with foam, the tramp and his mount, a strange combination, were instantly challenged by the sentry at the Fort.

“I must see Lieutenant Woodward immediately,” urged the tramp.

A heated argument followed until finally a corporal of the guards was called and led off the tramp toward the headquarters.

It was only a few minutes before Woodward was convinced of the identity of the tramp with his friend, Professor Arnold.  At the head of a squad of cavalry, Woodward and the tramp dashed off.

Already on the qui vive, Elaine heard the sound of hoof-beats long before the rest of us crowded around her.  For the moment we all stood ready to repel an attack from any quarter.

But it was not meant for us.  It was Woodward at the head of a score or so of cavalrymen.  With him rode a tramp on a horse which was strangely familiar to me.

“Oh,” cried Elaine, “there’s the man who saved me!”

As they passed, the tramp paused a moment and looked at us sharply.  Although he carefully avoided Elaine’s eyes, I fancied that only when he saw that she was safe was he satisfied to gallop off and rejoin the cavalry.

. . . . . . .

Around the old hotel, in every direction, Del Mar’s men were searching for the tramp and Elaine, while in the hotel another search was in progress.

“Have you discovered anything?” asked Del Mar, entering.

“No, sir,” they reported.

“Confound it!” swore Del Mar, going up-stairs again.

Here also were men searching.  “Find anything?” he asked briefly.

“No luck,” returned one.

Del Mar went on up to the top floor and out through the open scuttle to the roof.  “That’s how he got away, all right,” he muttered to himself, then looking up he exclaimed under his breath, as his eye caught something far off, “The deuce—­what’s that?”