"She's an active worker and she's working against us. Now, I'm going to settle with Miss White," he said gratingly. "I'm going to settle with her for good and all. I don't care what she knows, but she probably knows too much. She's hand in glove with the police and maybe she's working with her father. You'll get Phillopolis here to-morrow morning----" The other's eyes opened. "Phillopolis?" he almost gasped. "Good heavens! You're not going to----" The colonel faced him squarely. "You've had your chance with the girl and you've missed it," he said. "You've tried your fancy method of courting and you've fallen down." "But I'm not going to stand for Phillopolis," said the other, with tense face. "I tell you I like the girl. There's going to be none of that----" "Oh, there isn't, isn't there?" said the colonel in his silkiest tone. Then suddenly he leaned forward across the table and his face was the face of a devil. "There's only one Boundary Gang, Pinto, and this is it," he said between his clenched white teeth, "and there's only one Dan Boundary and that's me. Do you get me, Pinto? You can go a long way with me if I happen to be going that way. But you stand in the road and you're going to get what's coming. I've been good to you, Pinto. I've stood your interference because it amused me. But you come up against me, really up against me, and by the Lord Harry! you'll know it. Did you get that?" "I've got it" said Pinto sullenly. CHAPTER X THE GREEK PHILLOPOLIS The upbuilding of the Boundary gang had neither been an accident, nor was it exactly designed on the lines which it ultimately followed. The main structure was Boundary himself, with his extraordinary financial genius, his plausibility, his lightning exploitation of every advantage which offered. Outwardly he was the head of three trading corporations which complied with the laws, paid small but respectable dividends and cloaked other operations which never appeared in the official records of the companies. The sidelines of the gang came through force of circumstances. Men--good, bad and indifferent--were drawn into the orbit of its activities, as extraordinary circumstances arose or dire necessities dictated. Throughout the length and breadth of Britain, through France, Italy, and in the days before the war, and even during the war, in Germany, in Russia and in the United States, were men who, if they could not be described as agents, were at least ready tools.