By the time the lights were again turned on and the Goths in possession, I would have disappeared. No one would know how and none know where. When the blue enemy, despairing of my apprehension, had at last withdrawn with what prisoners had been made, I would be left alone. I might then uncover myself and take such subsequent flight as best became my liberty and its continuance. Often I went over this plan in my thoughts--a fashion of mental rehearsal, as it were--and the more I considered the more certain I became that when the pinch arrived it would not fail. As I’ve stated, none shared with me my secret of that hinged and hollow couch; it was my insurance--my cave of retreat in any tornado of the law; and the knowledge thereof steadied me and aided my courage to compose those airs of cheerful confidence which taught others safety and gave countenance to the story of my unqualified and sure “protection!” Alas! for the hour that unmasked me; from that moment The Shotgun fell away; my stream of golden profits ran dry; from a spectacle of reverence and respect I became the nine-day byword of my tribe! It was a crowded, thriving midnight at The Shotgun. I had been running an uninterrupted quartette of months; and having had good luck to the point of miracles, my finances were flourishing with five figures in their plethoric count. From a few poor hundreds, my “roll” when I snapped the rubber band about it and planted it deep within the safety of my pocket, held over fifty thousand dollars. Quite a fortune; and so I thought myself. It was, I repeat, a busy, winning midnight at The Shotgun. There were doubtless full forty visitors in the cramped room. These were crowded about the table, for the most part playing, reaching over each other’s shoulders or under each other’s elbows, any way and every way to get their wagers on the layout. I was dealing, while to right and left sat my henchmen of the lookout and the case. As on every evening, I lived on the feather-edge of apprehension, fearing a raid. My eye might be on the thirteen cards and the little fortunes they carried, but my ear was ever alert for a first dull footfall that would tell of destruction on its lowering way. There had been four hours of brisk, remunerative play--for the game began at eight--when, in the middle of a deal, there came the rush of heavy feet and a tumult of stumblings and blunderings on the stair. It was as if folk unaccustomed to the way--it being pitch dark on the stairway for caution’s sake--and in vast eagerness to reach the door, had tripped and fallen. Also, if one might judge from the uproar and smothered, deep profanity of many voices there were a score engaged. To my quick intelligence, itself for long on the rack of expectancy and therefore doubly keen, there seemed but one answer to the question, of that riot on the stair. It was the police; the Philistines were upon me; my gold mine of The Shotgun had become the target of a raid!