“I searched all around for it, but could not find it.”
“After that?”
“I tried to find you. I hastened along Twenty-third Street, and I was in luck. After turning into Broadway I saw you.”
“The Chinamen——”
“Were doing their best to get you to give up the stick. If you had shown an inclination to do so, I was determined to step forward and object, even though it would place my life in the greatest peril.”
“Place your life in peril? How?”
The bell-boy had disappeared, and Frank closed the door, which the stranger left open on entering.
“The life of any American, or any man not a Chinaman and a member of a strange secret order, is in constant peril if that stick remains in his possession,” asserted the stranger seriously.
The mystery was growing deeper.
“Then my life must be in peril?” questioned Frank.