Captain Welch was going on, “I’m not in this for my health. You know that if we get found out I’ll be the most disgraced man in America—next to you. But I’m getting desperate anyway. Desperate, do you hear me? That gambling affair, and the shortage in accounts at Fort Myer (I’d like to kill you for finding that out)—they’ll come out if I can’t get hold of plenty of hush-money. And then I’ll have to have enough over so I can resign from the Army and go to Europe for the rest of my life. I’m desperate I tell you. Now either you come across, or I’ll split to General Thorne—tell him the whole business by letter, and make a getaway from the country. It’s easy enough for me to move—I haven’t got any factories like you to take with me, and I’ll be welcomed in at least three South American armies. Here’s my ultimatum: Sign up for a hundred and fifty-thousand, or I walk out of this cabin—with my revolver out and the drop on you and your thugs—” “ALL RIGHT!” snarled Jolls. “Take your bribe.” And he signed a small sheet of paper which the Captain tucked into his pocket. Poodle was surprised to hear something much like a repressed chuckle beside him; and the General whispered, “It’s lovely—it’s _lovely_! I’ve already heard enough to land Captain Welch in disgrace.” “Well, now,” Jolls was saying, below, “let’s get our lines straight, and then we can talk to this Griffin boy. Young whelp! I’d like to kill him just on general principles. First, we’ll make him sign that letter. I think an hour in the swamp will have him about where we want him. Then to-night I’ll have Bat do the second-story burglar act, and steal all the plans of the tetrahedral that there are here in Washington—at the Lieutenant’s room and the patent office. That last is the most dangerous thing yet. As for Priest, you’ve got the data on his having been arrested for forgery have you?” “Yes,” said Welch. “Is that true—was Martin Priest a forger?” the General hastily whispered to Poodle. “Yes, he confessed it to Lieutenant Adeler and us,” admitted Poodle. The General answered, “Then it’s all right, and we’ll just forget it.” Below, Jolls was going on with his plot: “We’ll let that get into the newspapers, and at the same time we’ll send Priest young Griffin’s letter, and a faked letter from the General, and enough other stuff like that to make him think he’s disgraced and he’ll just disappear. I’ve had my men studying him closely enough so that I know he’s pretty sensitive. I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble with him. You still feel that the electric firearms he carries make him too dangerous to attack directly?” “Yes,” again said Captain Welch. “Well, all right, but I wish we could kill him.” “Yes, it _is_ too bad his appetite for raw meat’s spoiled,” Poodle whispered, like a “little cherub that sits up aloft.”