Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1916-05-29

and Gathering machinery and repeat
eddy addressed as Miss Golden" was
pang of envy to the breast of Peggy
O'Mara AS she watched her eyes sud
denly widened in alarm. For Margery
Golden, in staring about the room, had
unconsciously moved closer to one of
the ponderous machines. There the
loose end of her motor-cape was
snapped at by spinning cog wheel. as
hound snaps at a bone. The next
moment the whirling teeth had fas-
tened themselves IN the fabric of the
garment edge, carrying it back be
tween the jaws of the twin cogs that
quickly closed on the cloth and
seemed to reach out for more.
At the same moment that Margery
Golden turned about to determine the
meaning of this sudden tug at her
clothing. the alert-eyed Peggy O'Mara
made an apparently maniacal spring
for that astounded young woman s
throat
With a quick jerk of her thin young
fingers Peggy tore the cape free where
it was already straining against the
white column Of its wearer's throat.
II was not until Margery Golden
saw the iron teeth of the cog wheels
swallowing up the last of her vanish.
ing cape that any inkling of her dan.
ger came home TO her.
Margery Golden stepped back and
leaned against a guard rail. Then, aft.
er looking studiously at the slattern
and slightly abashed figure of her de
liverer, she opened her pocketbook
and from it took out two or three neat.
~ folded bank notes. These she held
smilingly out to the girl with the
broken-toed shoes.
But a quick flash spread over the
usually colorless cheeks of Miss Peggy
O'Mara as she backed determinedly
away from the bills.
Don't you care to take them? ''
asked the somewhat astonished young
woman in black
No maam!" was the girls almost
sullen retort. Il amt earned emf"
But 1 rather think you have" per.
sisted the other. still smiling.
you see, you saved my life And
surely you won't embarrass me by
arguing that it's not worth that
much!"
Il don't want your money" an.
nounced the suIlen-eyed girl, putting
her hands behind her. But already
x,Oupo AppIawo;@l,a mn. d;eoraa+lx, 40
ing his best to pilot his visitors ava
from the scene.
Peggy O'Mara stared after the de
parting group. So intently did she
stare after them that she was oblivi-
Gus of the movements of the one-armed
man who had been STOPPING low over
his machine, in a pretense of filling its
oil cups. He crept out to where a
small gold locket had dropped from
Margery Goldens neck during the en-.
counter. He caught it up from the oil
stained floor, looked at it for one short
moment, and then slipped it triumph
antly into his pocket. After that he
stood behind his machine, well out of
sight, watching the fair-haired girl in
black as she stepped out through the
factory door. His eyes, as he watched
her, were both calculating and SIMS
ter. But the pallid-faced girl standing
so close beside him had no means of
knowing that this preoccupied and
stoop-shouldered workman who had
long known to his enemies as the
Iron Claw.
That mysterious one-armed man,
however, was destined to become bet
ter acquainted with Peggy O'Mara
than she imagined. For that night,
when the uneasy minded girl knew her
father to be once more shut up in his
cellar workroom, she was further
disturbed by the sound of stealthy
steps across the bare wooden floor of
her home. She tiptoed out through
the door, crossed to the cellar steps,
and crept silently down into the dark.
ness.
There, vaguely outlined against the
door cracks in the wall shielding her
father, she could make out a stealthily
inquisitive figure. And she knew that
figure could mean no good to the house
of O'Mara.
She crept as silently up the broken
steps again, went to her fathers time,
worn tool chest and from it took out a
somewhat rusty but ominous-looking
revolver
tp9nuJluoO ga OIL