“Better go,” whispered Mollie Squint. “He's onto you an' the Dropper, an' if you don't go he'll come lookin' for you. Then him an' the Dropper'll go to th' mat wit' each other, an' have it awful. Give Johnny one of your soft talks, an' mebby youse can smooth him down. Stall him off be tellin' him you'll see him to-night at Ding Dong's.” Mollie Squint's advice seemed good, and as the lesser of two evils Alma decided to go. Mollie Squint did not accompany her. “Tell th' Dropper I'll be back in a moment,” said Alma to Mollie Squint, “an' don't wise him up about Johnny.” Alma met Spanish at the far corner of the clump of trees. There was no talk, no time for talk. They were all alone. As she drew near, he pulled a pistol and shot her through and through the body. Alma's moaning cry was heard by the Dropper--that, and the sound of the shot. When the Dropper reached her, she was lying senseless in the shadow of the trees--a patch of white and red against the green of the grass. Spanish was nowhere in sight.. Alma was carried to the hospital, and revived. But she would say nothing, give no names--staunch to the spirit of the Gangs. Only she whispered feebly to Mollie Squint, when the Dropper had been sent away by the doctors: “Johnny must have loved me a lot to shoot me up like he did. A guy has got to love a goil good and plenty before he'll try to cook her.” “Did youse tell th' hospital croakers his name?” asked Mollie Squint. “Of course not! I never squealed to nobody. Do youse think I'd put poor Johnny in wrong?” “Then I won't,” said Mollie Squint. An attendant told Mollie Squint that she must go; certain surgeons had begun to assemble. Mollie Squint, tears falling, kissed Alma good-by. “Give Johnny all me love,” whispered Alma. “Tell him I'm no snitch; I'll stick.” The Dropper did not have to be told whose bullet had struck down his star, his Alma. That night, Kid Kleiney with him, he went looking for Spanish. The latter, as jealous as Satan, was looking for the Dropper. Of the two, Spanish must have conducted his hunting with the greater circumspection or the greater luck; for about eleven of the clock he crept up behind the Dropper, as the latter and Kid Kleiney were walking in East Broadway, and planted a bullet in his neck. Kid Kleiney 'bout faced at the crack of the pistol, and was in fortunate time to stop Spanish's second bullet with one of the big buttons on his coat. Kid Kleiney fell by the side of the wounded Dropper, jarred off his feet by the shock.' He was able, however, when the police came up, to help place the Dropper in an ambulance. Spanish? Vanished--as usual. The police could get no line on him, did get no line on him, until months later, when, as related--the Dropper having been lagged for robbery, and safely caged--he came back to stick up the joint of Mersher the Strong-Arm, and be arrested by Dribben and Blum.