The door of the elevator itself stood partly in the moonlight. Jerry O'Keefe could see the dull glitter that he knew to be the key--and could even make out--or so he thought--that the door stood an inch or two ajar. Of that he was not quite certain--and it was a vitally important point. If the lock was not caught, he might get in before he could be killed. If he had to fumble with a key, his end was certain. Jerry drew himself together and made the dive. Four rifles spoke in unison and four bullets imbedded themselves in the heavy timbers of the great building as he hurled himself against the door, and felt it give laxly under his weight. He had not fired a shot and between himself and his enemies stood the staunchness of walls against which their rifle bullets would pelt as harmlessly as hailstones. Except for his anxiety about Alexander he might have lighted his pipe and waited with a contented spirit. Indeed, a slow smile did shape itself on his face, but a startled thought wiped it away as swiftly and completely as a wet sponge obliterates writing on a slate. That thought left his expression as black as a slate too. Jerry drew his pistol, and for a moment it was in his mind to open the door and go out again. When he had sent the girl away for reinforcements it had not occurred to him that this ambuscade might be intended to include her as well as himself. He had thought that, once apart from him, unless mistaken for him in the dark, she could walk safely. Indeed he had been at a total loss to explain, in any way, the motive of the attack. Now it had flashed upon him that it was somehow an outgrowth of the old robbery attempt--and if that were true as high a price lay on the girl's head as upon his own. She was out there alone and in all likelihood unarmed. Jerry O'Keefe broke into a cold sweat of panic--and he sat with his ears strained for a pistol shot--a shout--any indication that might call him across the moonlight zone beyond the door to her defense. But the stillness of the midsummer night had settled again, except for the voices of the whippoorwill and the katydid. By this time, he tried to reassure himself, Alexander had made her way down into the gorge and was beyond the touch of danger. But that was not true. The girl had need to move with such silence as should break no twig and rustle no shrub. She must twist along a course that avoided the patches of moonlight, weaving her slow way in and out. Deliberation now was hard, but it would mean greater and more effective haste later on. She had even paused, crouching, with inheld breath, at a spot from which she could watch the door of the elevator, until Jerry had made his dash. With a heart swollen and strained by dread almost to bursting, she had seen him shoot across the exposed area and burst through the door--and she had heard the fusilade that resented his escape.