But that delay, while it had placed Dick Stewart in a position where he could no longer follow the spy from the Hohenzollern Club, had saved Dixie Mason from an embarrassing position. For that delay had been just long enough for Dixie Mason to see Heinric von Lertz enter the shack, to watch him leave again, then to allow the little daredevil of the secret service to creep to the shack, ascend an old ladder which she found leaning against the building, and peep through the old trap in the roof. And there she saw---- Two men busily engaged upon the torpedo, which they were making ready to lower through the manhole into the sewer. One of them was talking: "Von Lertz looked like he'd been out all night----" "Yes. That's the way he is most of the time. But that's the way with the ones higher up. They can go out and play--while we do the work. But when the Iron Crosses are distributed, they get them, not us." A growl from the third. "Shut up. You're better off here than you would be in the trenches. This is easy work for you. I get tired hearing you reservists kicking on a little easy campaign work over in this country when you might be handling the minnewerfers over in Flanders. But, let's stop this talking. The fleet will sail in a few hours now. We've got to have this torpedo ready to launch at the flagship." That sentence was enough. Dixie hurried from her position on the ladder, started down--then winced as she struck the ground. One foot had struck in a chuck-hole, twisting the ankle severely, and slowly and painfully, she limped to her car, where it was concealed in the shadow of a great, dismantled boiler. The driver hurried forward to her aid, assisting her within. At the door of the taxi, Dixie, half turning with the pain of her ankle, failed to notice that her reticule slipped from her wrist and fell to the ground. Nor did the driver. He leaped to his place at the wheel and turned expectantly. "Where to now?" he asked. "A telephone--just as quick as you can make it!" Dixie answered. Her voice was faint from the pain of her sprained ankle. "How about a doctor for that foot?" the driver was staring at the expression of agony on the girl's features. "Never mind that. Where's a telephone?" "In a roadhouse, down the line about three miles." "Get to it--hurry!" A moment more and the machine was scurrying along the lonely road, toward the roadhouse and toward the warning that Dixie sought to send the Secret Service. But as the machine roared its way along through the early morning, the spy from the Hohenzollern club entered the shack on Staten Island, his eyes wide with excitement, his voice snapping as he sent the men scurrying faster than ever in their work. "There's danger! I just knocked a Secret Service man over in the woods. They're after us! Bar that door and barricade it! We've got to get this torpedo into place before they catch our trail. Every minute means danger!"