"Hades! what does this mean?" and the trapped villain staggered, clutching the back of a chair for support. "It means that your race of crime and diabolism is run, Harper Elliston!" Red hair and beard were suddenly swept aside, a revolver was thrust into the startled countenance of Elliston; he looked, and could only utter: "DYKE DARREL, THE DETECTIVE!" "Do you deny your guilt, scoundrel?" But Harper Elliston sank to a seat, and bowed his head, while drops of cold sweat covered his forehead. The touch of cold steel and click of closing bracelets roused him. He was helpless now, for his wrists were encircled by handcuffs. Black despair confronted the villain. Dyke Darrel went through the pockets of his prisoner and found a revolver, an ugly looking clasp knife, and other articles of a nature that served to show that the owner was not pursuing an honest calling. "Do you remember that night on the dock beside the river, Elliston?" questioned Bernard, bending suddenly over the prisoner. But no answer came from the bloodless lips of the cornered villain. "It was I who tore your mask of red hair from your head that night. I had mistrusted you for a villain, and I meant to unmask you to save Nell Darrel, whom I loved, from your wiles. You struck me with a knife and pushed me into the river. I, however, was not harmed. The point of your knife glanced on a small book that I carried in an inner pocket. I escaped from the river, and resolved to follow you to your doom. I overheard your plans of abducting Nell Darrel, when you fired at my masked face that night as I peered into Mother Scarlet's room. I then knew you to be a villain of the deepest dye. Since, I learned that you were the man in disguise on the emigrant train in Iowa, and this wart will, with other evidence, condemn you before an honest jury of your peers." A groan alone answered the denouement made by Harry Bernard. Dyke Darrel removed the glove from his prisoner's right hand, and exposed a scarcely-healed scar near the joint of the little finger. The chain of evidence was complete. The red hair in the clutches of the murdered Nicholson had evidently been torn from the false beard of the disguised assassin. The New Yorker was removed from the house and taken at once to prison. From thence, on the following morning, Dyke Darrel set out on his return to the Garden City with Elliston in charge. Harry Bernard remained over at the farm-house in New York State to see Nell, who had been left in the care of Paul Ender. Nell had almost entirely recovered from the shock of her recent treatment, and was overjoyed at the outcome of her friends' visit to New York. "Elliston will be convicted and hanged," was Bernard's verdict. On the very day of Harry's arrival at the farm-house, he, with the old farmer, was summoned to visit one who had met with a fatal accident and was about to die.