“Gone!” Newton Mills sprang out of bed. He began to walk the floor.
“Gone! I should have warned him. That’s the trouble with a boy. There are so many things he must be told. Judgment; that’s what a boy lacks. Judgment comes only with years of experience. Gone; and the bullets gone with him! They have him. They have the bullets. The case is lost!”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly.” Drew Lane spoke in a quiet, even voice. “He must have left the shack for something. They must have got him. That is unfortunate. Will they get the bullets? I doubt it. Johnny is an unusual boy. I haven’t lived with him all this time without knowing that.
“And if the bullets are gone, we have a witness, Rosy.”
“If she lives.”
“She must live. Life is too beautiful for such a girl to part with it so soon.”
“And yet it has ended for many at her age.”
The two men fell into silence.
“I’ll call up headquarters,” said Drew at last. “The night chief will send some men over to question old Mask Face, who says his name is Jimmie McGowan. They’ll make him tell where the gang hangs out. We’ll get Johnny back yet.”
Jimmie McGowan was one person who talked only when he chose to talk. The men from the Detective Bureau learned nothing of any importance from him.