With no ledge or projection of any kind on the outer wall to steady him, Perth could only slip one foot and then the other through the window, let his body follow and drop to the ground. He struck in the midst of a wet and sticky heap of decaying weeds, garbage, tin cans, ashes and broken crockery but fortunately, upon his feet. More frightened than ever, now, he viewed impatiently Pickton's painful efforts to force himself out of the stable by the same route, and his eventual success. "For pity's sake, Gaines, don't be all day!" admonished Pick fretfully, when finally he had reached the ground in safety. "Let go, now! You're all right! Hangin' on there like a crazy pinchin' bug!" Thus pleasantly encouraged, Soapy had by this time his head and body through the aperture, and was moved, yet loath, to let go his desperate grasp upon the edges of the window's frame. Stupidly he had not advanced feet first and in consequence there was but one chance in a thousand of his being able to alight upon those extremities when he let himself down. However the urgency of the situation as well as his friend's caustic remarks determined him to make the effort and with a subdued groan he pitched forward. It was only as might be expected, under the circumstances, that when Gaines sought to leap clear of the window and get his feet in under him, he failed--failed wretchedly. His head plunged into a large, and sadly decomposed pumpkin, carried out to the heap of refuse when Mrs. Gouger had cleaned the cellar recently. His hands grasped only the wet, decaying weeds and, unable to steady himself, he rolled on his back amid the cans, the ashes and all that the rank heap contained. If there was consolation for young Mr. Gaines in the fact that the pumpkin had broken the force of his fall, he expressed it in a weird and peculiar manner, as he struggled out. If he found reason to congratulate himself that, beyond a mixture of pumpkin pulp and seeds upon his face and in his hair, and sundry sorts of decomposed vegetation clinging to his hands and arms and clothing, he was not injured, he did this, likewise, in strangely excited, irritated language. Perhaps he was thinking of other things than either consolation or congratulations. Nevertheless he let Perth lead him quickly to the car, half-blinded with the juices of the pumpkin in his eyes. Pickton had the engine going, and Soapy was pushed and lifted into his seat with more dispatch than ceremony. Even while Fred climbed up to the rumble the automobile was put under way. Then out of the alley and down the side street it lunged as if Eli Gouger were but a yard behind.