more than half an hour when he lost the fugitive entirely. He wandered
up to the second floor and then back again. There, in a room that had
been the library, he caught a glimpse of the man. But the figure was so
shadowy that he could tell nothing about him.

"Halt!" cried Dick, snatching out his pistol. But when he leveled it
there was nothing to aim at. The figure had melted away, or rather
it had flitted through another door. Dick followed, chagrined. The
stranger seemed to be playing with him. Obviously, it was some one
thoroughly acquainted with the house, and that brought to Dick's mind the
thought that he himself, instead of the other man, was the stranger there.

He came at last to a passage which led to the kitchen, a great room,
because many people were often guests at Bellevue, and here he stopped
short, while his heart suddenly beat hard. A distinct odor coming from
different points suddenly assailed his nostrils. He had smelled it too
often in the last two years to be mistaken. It was smoke, and Bellevue
had been set on fire in several places.

He inhaled it once or twice and then he saw again the shadowy figure
flitting down to the passage and to a small door that, unnoticed by the
soldiers, opened on the kitchen garden in the rear of the house.

Dick never acted more promptly. Instantly he fired his pistol into the
ceiling, the report roaring in the confined spaces of the house, and then
shouting with all his might: "Fire! Fire! Fire!" as he dashed down the
passage he ran through the little door, which the intruder had left open,
and pursued him in the darkness and rain into the garden. There was a
flash ahead of him and a bullet whistled past his ear, but he merely
increased his speed and raced in the direction of the flash. As he ran