They were ignoring me. But Gutierrez, lurking in the door oval, was not: I was well aware of that. "I remember you from years ago, little Jetta." "And I remember you." I understand the rationality of her purpose. She could easily get De Beer's confidence. She had known him when a child. Her father had been his business partner, presumably his friend. And I saw her now cleverly altering her status here. She had been a captive, allied with me. She was changing that. She was now Spawn's daughter, here with her dead father's friend. She turned a gaze of calm aversion upon me. "Unless you want him here, De Boer. I would rather talk to you--without him." He leaped to his feet. "Hah! that pleases me, little Jetta! Gutierrez, take this fellow away." The Spanish-American came slouching forward. "The girl's an old friend, Commander? You never told me that." "Because it is no business of yours. Take him away. Seal him in D-cubby." I said sullenly. "I misjudged both of you." Jetta's gaze avoided me. As Gutierrez shoved me roughly down the corridor, De Boer laughed, and his voice came back: "Do not be afraid. We will find some safe way of ransoming you--dead or alive!" I was flung on a bunk in one of the corridor cubbies, and the door sealed upon me. (_To be continued._) An Extra Man _By Jackson Gee_ [Illustration: "Harry turns into a thick smoke, and gets sucked into a big hole in the machine."] [Sidenote: Sealed and vigilantly guarded was "Drayle's Invention, 1932"----for it was a scientific achievement beyond which man dared not go.] Rays of the August mid-day sun pouring through the museum's glass roof beat upon the eight soldiers surrounding the central exhibit, which for thirty years has been under constant guard. Even the present sweltering heat failed to lessen the men's careful observation of the visitors who, from time to time, strolled listlessly about the room. The object of all this solicitude scarcely seemed to require it. A great up-ended rectangle of polished steel some six feet square by ten or a dozen feet in height, standing in the center of Machinery Hall, it suggested nothing sinister or priceless. Two peculiarities, however, marked it as unusual--the concealment of its mechanism and the brevity of its title. For while the remainder of the exhibits located around it varied in the simplicity or complexity of their design, they were alike in the openness of their construction and detailed explanation of plan and purpose. The great steel box, however, bore merely two words and a date: "Drayle's Invention, 1932."