"This looks like a short cut," said Joe, indicating a side street which though rather dark and deserted cut into the main thoroughfare, as they could see by the bright lights at the further end. "We'll save something by going this way." They had gone perhaps a couple of blocks when they reached a part of the street which had no dwelling houses on it. On one side was a factory, dark and forbidding, and on the side where the young men were walking was a high board fence enclosing a coal yard. "Wait a minute, Jim," said Joe. "It feels as though my shoe lace had come untied." He stooped down to fasten the lace, and just as he did so, a jagged piece of rock came whizzing past where his head had been a second before and crashed against the fence. Joe straightened up with a jerk. "Who threw that?" he exclaimed. Jim's face was white at the peril his friend had so narrowly escaped. "Somebody who knew how to throw," he cried, "and I can make a guess at who it was. There he is now!" he shouted, as he caught sight of a dim figure slinking away in the darkness on the further side of the factory. They darted across the street in pursuit, but when they turned the corner there was no one to be seen. Several alleys branched off from the street, up any one of which the fugitive might have made his escape. Although they tried them one after the other they could find no trace of the rascal. Baffled and chagrined, they made their way back to the scene of the attack. Joe picked up the piece of rock and weighed it in his hand. "About half a pound," he judged. "And look at those rough edges! It would have been all up with me, if it had landed." "Do you notice that that's about the weight of a baseball?" asked Jim significantly. "And it went for your head as straight as a bullet. It would have caught you square if you hadn't stooped just as you did. You can thank your lucky stars that your shoelace came untied. That fellow knew just how to throw, as I said before." "You don't mean," replied Joe, "that Bugs----" "Just that," affirmed Jim grimly. "Now maybe you'll believe me when I say that I saw him to-night. That skunk thought that I had seen him, and slipped into the saloon to get out of sight. Probably he went out through a rear door and has been following us ever since." "But why----" began Joe. "Why?" repeated Jim. "Why does a crazy man do crazy things? Just because he is crazy. He doesn't have to have a reason. If he thinks you've injured him he's just as bitter as though you really had. Hughson's tip was a good one, Joe. The fellow's deadly dangerous. It's only luck that he isn't a murderer this minute." "It's good for him I didn't lay my hands on him," replied Joe. "I wouldn't have hit him, because I don't think he's responsible for what he does. But I'd have had him put where he couldn't do any more mischief for a while." "It gives me the creeps to think of what a close call that was," said Jim, as they walked along.