He said this with the idea of bullying either the farmer or the persons within the room into opening the door, but Van Deelen remained sullen and motionless. Beveridge, however, caught up the idea; and with a “Wait here, Dick,” he ran down the stairs. In entering the house they had closed the door after them, and now Beveridge had to stop and fumble a moment with the lock. But it was only a moment, and pulling it open he plunged out. A breathless man with his hat pulled down was starting up the steps. Beveridge stopped short; so did the breathless man. For an instant they stood motionless, one staring down from the top step, the other staring up from the bottom. Then Beveridge saw, in the shadow of the hat-brim, a black mustache; and at the same instant the owner of the mustache recognized the figure above him. Not for worlds would Beveridge have called out. He had McGlory fairly in his hands,--the moment he had been hoping for, almost praying for, had come,--and he could never have resisted the desire to take him singlehanded. McGlory was heavy, muscular, desperate--these were merely additional reasons. Beveridge had known little but plodding work for weeks and months--here was where the glory came in. And glory was what he craved--a line in the papers, the envy of his associates, the approbation of his superiors. And so, when he saw McGlory before him in the flesh, silently tugging at something in his hip pocket, he not only sprang down on him as a mountain lion might leap on its prey,--not only this, but he took pains, even in this whirling moment, to make no noise in the take-off. McGlory got the revolver out, but he was a fifth of a second too late. Just as he swung it around, the special agent landed on him, caught his wrist, gripped him around the neck with his other arm, and bore him down in the sand of the dooryard. Neither made a sound, save for occasional grunting and heavy breathing. They rolled over and over, Beveridge now on top, now McGlory. McGlory was hard as steel; Beveridge was lithe and quick. If McGlory gripped him so tight around the body that it seemed only a question of seconds before his ribs must go, one after another, Beveridge never slackened his hold of that bull-like neck. McGlory struggled to turn the revolver toward Beveridge; but Beveridge held to his wrist and bent it back--back--until any other man must have dropped the weapon for the sheer pain of it. The door had swung to behind Beveridge as he went out; the horse was thrashing in the barn; and Dick, leaning against the closed door of Mrs. van Deelen's bedroom, looking at the farmer, heard nothing of the struggle that was going on outside. He was wondering what interest this farmer could have in a gang of smugglers. He decided to ask. This business of standing opposite him and exchanging the glances of two hostile dogs was not a pleasant experience for a man of Dick's sociable humor. “I've been wondering, Van Deelen, what you're acting this way for.”