During all this time what had been happening to the air pilot, Curlie Carson, Johnny’s one time pal?  
We left him forty feet below the city’s streets in a narrow tunnel with fumes of sulphur filling in behind him, and steel doors closing before him.
 
Curlie Carson could not remember the time that he was not conscious of some all-pervading presence hovering over and protecting him. Call it what you will, this feeling gave him calm confidence.
 
With all the remaining strength that was in him, he threw himself forward and through the door.
 
Scarcely had he passed than the doors closed with a sickening thud, and he dropped to the floor, exhausted.
 
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He was soon on his feet, however. There was work to be done. The package that meant so much of honor or disgrace to him was still in the hands of the mysterious stranger.
 
Turning, he raced down the narrow tunnel. Coming to an intersection, he paused to listen. The trainman had disappeared. For a time the echoing tunnels were still. As he placed his ear to the ground he caught the sound of receding footsteps.
 
“Off to the left,” he told himself, “and he is not running. He thinks I am no longer on his trail!”
 
On tiptoe, not making the least sound, he went speeding down the tunnel.
 
The man had gone farther than he thought. In such a place sound travels far. The tunnel here, too, was strange. He covered the distance of a long city block, yet came to no intersection. He doubled the distance; still no track crossing this one. The place grew strangely still. The very stillness of it frightened him.
 
“Like a tomb.” He shuddered.
 
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Once more he dropped upon the track to apply his ear. To his consternation he caught no sound of footsteps. Despair seized him. What could have happened? Had he gone in the wrong direction? Had he lost his man?
 
The thing was unthinkable. The package must be recovered at any cost.
 
“No,” he told himself, “I have not lost him. He is still here.”
 
He began to grow suspicious. A cold chill ran up his spine. Perhaps the man was lurking in the shadows waiting to strike him down. Seeing a two foot length of strap iron lying beside the track, he grasped it firmly in his good right hand and pressed on.
 
He had not gone a hundred paces when suddenly the passage broadened and came to an abrupt end.
 
He had entered what appeared to be a blind alley in the tunnel. And here there was no one.
 
A quick look about him showed a large freight elevator, used, no doubt, for lifting cars to a level some twenty feet above hi............