She felt suddenly a kind of terror of the place. She touched Malcolm's arm. "I've seen enough--please! Could we turn back now?" The Warden overheard and nodded. "Just wait here a moment," he said, "and we'll go. I want to take a look forward." He strode from them down the broad way between the lines of workers. Harry heard the step behind him on the steel floor. He thought the others were with him. Under the rattle of the cogs his sick imagination caught the swish of a dress--almost he thought he caught a faint breath of a familiar perfume--and he averted his face till they should pass. It was by reason of this that his lowered eyes caught a stealthy movement in the man at the next machine--a movement of one hand which crept under his jacket, and jerked forth, clutching something shining and murderous. Harry acted without conscious thought, by swift and certain instinct. As the lean arm, tense with hate, went up behind the Warden's back, he leaped forward with a cry of warning, caught the wrist whose hand held the sharpened file, and both went down clinched and struggling together. The cry, sharp and strained, pierced across the din. It brought the Superintendent to his feet on his platform, like the release of a coiled spring, a revolver in either hand. "Back to the door!" he roared, and Malcolm's sinewy arm swept the two girls behind him. The fierce clamour of a bell sounded outside. There was sudden pandemonium. Doors opened, men in uniform dashed by her, and on the platform the Superintendent stood, crouching forward like a panther about to spring, still as a statue, both hands outstretched with their gleaming muzzles, his eyes flashing over the room. In that desperate struggle, as he clung to the maddened convict, Harry was conscious only of the strenuous confusion--of commands that snapped like whip-lashes--of the burly form of the Warden above him and that of a "trusty" who snatched at the vicious weapon--of a sudden anguished pang in his shoulder. Then, swiftly and sweetly, the whole world slipped away into blankness and silence. A half hour later, as Echo and Nancy sat with Malcolm in the office, on the ground floor of the frame building just inside the great double gates of the prison, the Warden entered. His grave face lightened with a smile of reassurance. "All well," he said cheerfully. "It came close to being a nasty wound, but the doctor says no harm will come of it, though he will be in the hospital ward for a week. I wouldn't have had this fracas happen while you ladies were here for a year's salary," he added, "and that's a fact!" Nancy's face was still pale, and she shivered as he spoke, but she gave a little laugh, as she said, "We didn't bring you luck to-day, did we? You'll be wary of Friday visitors hereafter."