A low whistle from a man stationed at the mouth of the alley interrupted the speech which the man with the knife was enjoying so much, and he sprang from the chest of Stone, who had been struggling vainly all this time. As the man sprang up and started to run, he suddenly whirled and gave Stone a vicious kick upon the hip, and as Stone rose, another man kicked him in the ribs. All three of them ran, and Stone, scrambling to his feet with difficulty, whipped his revolver from his pocket and snapped it. Long disused, however, the trigger stuck, but he took after them on foot in spite of the pain of the two fearful kicks that he had received. Instead of darting straight out of the alley, the men turned in at a small gate at the side of a narrow building on the corner, and slammed the gate behind them. He could hear the drop of the wooden bolt. He knew perfectly that entrance. It was to the littered back yard of a cheap saloon, at the side of which ran a narrow passageway to the street beyond, where street-cars passed every half-minute. Just as he came furiously up to the gate a policeman darted in at the alley mouth, and, catching the glint of Stone's revolver, whipped his own. He ran quite fearlessly to Stone, and with a dextrous blow upon the wrist sent the revolver spinning. "You're under arrest," said he. For just one second he covered his man, then his arm dropped and his jaw opened in astonishment. "Why, it's Stone!" he exclaimed. "Yes, damn you, it's Stone!" screamed the Boss, livid with fury, and overcome with anger he dealt the policeman a staggering blow in the face. "You damned flat-foot, I'll teach you to notice who you put your hands on! Give me that badge!" White-faced and with trembling fingers, and with a trickle of blood starting slowly from a cut upon his cheek, the man unfastened his badge. "Now, go back to Cooley and tell him I broke you," Stone ordered, and turned on his heel. By the time he reached the back door of the beer-garden he was limping most painfully, but when he rejoined his crowd he said nothing of the incident. In the brief time that it had taken him to go from the alley mouth to that table he had divined the significance of the whole thing. For the first time in his career he knew himself to be a systematically marked man, as he had systematically marked others; and he was not beyond reason. Thereafter, Bobby Burnit was in no more jeopardy from hired thugs, and for a solid year he kept up his fight, with plenty of material to last him for still another twelvemonth. It was a year which improved him in many ways, but Aunt Constance Elliston objected to the improvement. "Bobby, they _are_ spoiling you," she complained. "They're taking your suavity away from you, and you're acquiring grim, hard lines around your mouth." "They're making him," declared Agnes, looking fondly across at the firm face and into the clear, unwavering eyes.