It was just at the half-hour when Harry opened the outer door of his apartment. But he did not pass through. Three men had been waiting silently just across the threshold. One of them was Craig. They entered without a word, Craig shut the door and one of the others took his stand before it. CHAPTER XLVI CRAIG STRIKES Sevier had stepped back as they entered. He had not been startled at the ambush; he had gone past surprises. He was conscious only of a cold preparedness and a kind of dull wonder as to the form of their errand. The purpose in Craig's face left no cause for any speculation as to their intent. He looked at the other's two companions, perfect types of the "heeler," burly and with brutally-cunning features, that wore now a gloze of satisfaction in the work that was forward. They were not in uniform--it was not an arrest, then. What did Craig intend to do? He turned, set his hat on the hall table and passed into the sitting-room. Craig followed him. Harry now saw that he carried a compact bundle under his arm. He snapped the cord and disclosed a costume--jacket and trousers of black and yellow-grey stripes and a flat, peaked cap of dingy canvas. Around one arm of the jacket was a leathern band which bore a metal number--239! "Put them on," commanded Craig shortly. "Over what you are wearing. They'll be large enough." A painful mist was before Harry's eyes. He understood. Craig meant to give him up stamped with the old felon character, clothed in the unmistakable livery of the convict! Well, if not to-night, to-morrow. What did it matter? As he drew on the loathsome garments, buttoning the jacket close up to his chin, their very touch seemed to cling insupportably to his flesh. The smell of the coarse fulled cloth in his nostrils gave him a qualm as of actual physical sickness, and the feel of the canvas cap across his forehead burned it like a brand. Craig had taken from his pocket a black cloth mask. "Now this," he said. "I believe you wore one in your last burglary," he added with cold malevolence. "I am disposed to miss no realistic touch, believe me." Harry put on the mask, whose lower hem fell below his beard. Through its eye-holes he looked evenly at the sneering, implacable face opposite. A peculiar apathy had come to him. The wide humiliation--even the cheap and ghastly sensationalism of the mask did not touch him. Like the hapless voyageur caught in the rapids above the great falls, he was watching the nearing brink with a kind of fascination and with the roar of the cataract in his ears. One of the men had opened a window to peer down into the street. "All clear," he announced briefly, and Craig went to the hall and opened the door.