Long ago Johnny had formed two habits. While walking alone at night he kept well toward the outer edge of the sidewalk. Under such conditions it is hard for a would-be assailant to spring at one unobserved. Then, too, he carried one hand in his coat pocket. “For,” he was accustomed to say to his friends, “who will know what I hold in that hand? It may be a small gun. If it were, I could shoot it quite accurately without removing it from my pocket. Crooks are, at heart, great cowards. What one of them will face a hand in a coat pocket?” Thus far in Johnny’s young life, not one of the night prowlers had molested him.
Though some sixth sense told him now that he was being followed in the shadows, he was not greatly alarmed. He merely increased his pace to a brisk walk. From time to time he looked over his shoulder. Each time he saw no one.
He was passing along an empty lot lined with great signboards, and had reached the center of the block when two men sprang from the shadows.
Not wholly unprepared for this, he gave a sudden leap to one side, then sprang forward to transform the affair into a foot race.
Fortunately at that moment four sturdy citizens turned a corner and advanced in his direction.
This apparently was an unforeseen part of the program, for at once his would-be assailants stopped short, then turned as if to walk in the other direction.
As they turned, the face of the shorter one was suddenly illumined by a light from an auto that had turned a corner.
It was but a flash. Then all was darkness. Yet in that flash Johnny had seen a man, one of those who had followed him. He was a youth with broad, slightly stooping shoulders. His face seemed a mask. His clothes were in the height of style. The light brought a flash from a diamond somewhere on his person.
Darkness followed. Johnny walked straight ahead. He met and passed the four men, who paid him not the slightest attention. Fifteen minutes later he was at his post in the radio station. There, for a time, the matter ended. Of two things you may be sure. Johnny walked that street no more at night, nor did he forget that youth with a face that was like a mask.