The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-08-06


 Legar himself announce. "The things |. got to be settled, and settled before norning!"
 "But howl" asked one of his fol- levers.
 With two pounds of guncotton and time fuse" was Legar's reply.
 "In the O'Mara cottage?" asked an- other voice.
 Yes; want that cottage wiped off the face of the earth, and the family with 1t! And I want 1t done before morning!"
 Margory listened, obvious of the passing of time, as the conspirators behind the closed door continued to debate on their plan of action. Then she started, even as much as they did, when the sudden buzzing of an elec- tric annunciator warned that intent group of an intruder's approach.
 It was and only then that the girl remembered her parting message to the taxicab driver. But she had no time to intercept that driver, for al- ready she could hear the sound of steps crossing the stone floor of the inner chamber. All that was left her to do was to dart to the camp cot, drop down on the stone floor beside 1t, and then roll deftly in behind the soiled blankets draped untidily along it's side
 The next moment Legar and his men were in the outer chamber. While one of the men crept to a se- cret outlook crevice in the farther wall Legar himself stepped to one of the control chains which ran from floor to ceiling on the other side of the room, and by pulling one of these started into action some mysterious mechanism which the watching girl could not quite comprehend. She saw them run back to the inner room and stand waiting while Legar manipulated still another secret spring which threw open a hidden door in the back wall of that room. And that door, she surmised, led by some unknown passage to the outer world.
 But Margory did not give much thought to this, for there came to her as she regained her feet the repeated cry of a human being, a cry husky with terror. She ran to the pivot door in the masonry, swung 1t back, and there beheld a sight which made her blood run cold. It took her, in fact, ponderable space of time to understand the scene confronting her. But as she stared out she saw where her unsuspecting chauffeur had stepped on the cross marked flag stone, for it was now several inches lower than the rest of the floor. And this, obviously, had released steel arm which had swung suddenly for ward and swept the startled intruder fiat against the stone wall, holding him there as in wise. And as he stood pinioned there a great block of granite, released by some hidden machinery, was slowly descending from the roof of the corridor. It was ascending straight over the head of the imprisoned chauffeur, and before iudny minutes, IL was pIdlu to see, IL would crush his body under it's many tonned massiveness as easily as Q sledge hammer might crush an angle- worm. It was. in fact, already bear ing down on his bewildered head be- fore Margory fully awakened to the lmminence of his peril. Then. re- membering the chain which she had seen Legar manipulate, Margory ran back into the room, caught at first one of these chains and then at the other, and succeeded in bringing the unseen machinery to a stop. The descending mass of granite was ar rested, the great steel arm swung back into place, and the terrified chauffeur, still dazed, but little the worse for his experience. was able to stagger to his feet. But if his body