What things may happen to him who travels the dark streets of a great city at night! What terrors lurk in corners that lie inky black beyond the reach of some feeble light. What unexpected hidden evil lies ever just before him. And yet, how many countless thousands have traveled these streets in peace and safety, with not one finger lifted to do them harm!  
It happened thus to Curlie Carson. With the precious mail sack tucked securely beneath one elbow, he rode into the night while the taximeter ticked off the miles. The driver he had chanced upon was skillful and safe. He knew his city well. The street address was all he needed. In due course of time he brought the cab to a jolting stop.
 
69
The fee was soon paid, and Curlie found himself passing down a winding walk bordered on either side by a low hedge which led to a quiet looking gray brick house.
 
A light was burning in the front window on the second floor. His hand trembled as he pressed the door bell. He had risked so much. He had broken the laws of the postal service, laws that until now had been all but sacred to him. What if, after all, he were too late? What if that light were but a death watch?
 
Footsteps sounded. A light, hanging in a brass lantern above him, suddenly shone down upon him.
 
The door opened. A middle-aged man in a gray dressing robe stood before him.
 
“Is—is the Professor here?” he asked.
 
“I am the Professor.” The man’s tone was kindly.
 
“I am from the Air Mail service. There was medicine. I have—”
 
“The medicine! Where is it?”
 
“Then,” thought Johnny, “it is not too late.”
 
“Here!” He thrust a hand into the mail bag, to secure the smallest package.
 
70
“Let me have it.” The man grasped it eagerly, then sprang away up the stairs, leaving the astonished boy to stand and stare.
 
“Well,” he thought after a time, “guess that’s about all of that.” He turned, about to go, when a thought struck him.
 
He had no receipt for the package. What proof had he that it had been delivered at all?
 
“Won’t do,” he told himself. “I’m in deep enough now. Got to have a receipt.”
 
He had turned about and stood undecided whether to ring the bell at once or wait, when suddenly a woman with a very beautiful face appeared before him.
 
“You brought the medicine. It will save her. The doctor says it will be all right now. How can we thank you!” She all but embraced him.
 
Curlie took a backward step. He swallowed hard twice. Then he spoke. “You—you might just sign a receipt saying you received the package.”
 
“Certainly. Where is the form?”
 
71
“I—I haven’t any. You see,” he half apologized, “I was forced to land in a pasture. I knew about the medicine. I got through—don’t matter how. Then I—I cut the sack so I could deliver the medicine. You see I—”
 
“You mean you broke the law to save our child?”
 
“Well, you might say—. Anyway, I know it’ll be all right. If one obeys his conscience he doesn’t get into much trouble, does he?”
 
“Perhaps not. But all the same that was quite wonderful.”
 
She invited him into a room whose walls were lined with books. She left him there while she went for the wrapper that showed the registry number. When she had returned she penned a receipt and handed it to him.
 
“You must be hungry and tired,” she said. “Won’t you stay and rest? We will have some hot coffee for you at once.”
 
“If you don’t mind,” the boy smiled his thanks, “there are two other packages. One should be delivered without delay. It’s a priceless violin. Fritz Lieber’s own.”
 
72
“Fritz Lieber!” There was awe in her tone. “You must not go in a taxi. Our car is out. The driver has been ready to go for the medicine, if it were necessary. He shall take you.”
 
“That,” said Curlie as he seemed to feel the cozy comfort of a private car, “will be grand.”
 
“It only partly pays. If ever you are in trouble, and need a friend, please do not forget us.” She pressed his hand hard as she left him at the door.
 
Once more the impromptu messenger boy raced into the night.
 
“If you ever need a friend, don’t forget us.”
 
These words came to him again and again. It was as if they had just been spoken.
 
“A friend,” he thought to himself. “Will I be badly in need of a friend?”
 
Surely if anything went wrong before the remaining packages were delivered he would. He had broken postal regulations, smashed them all to bits.
 
But here he was again. The car had drawn up before a hotel of magnificent proportions. Even at these last hours of night, a liveried attendant opened the car door.
 
73
“Fri—Fritz Lieber,” said Curlie in some confusion. “I must see him.”
 
The doorman stared at him and his torn mailsack, but led the way to the desk.
 
Here the boy repeated his request.
 
“It is very unusual for a guest, especially so important a guest, to be disturbed at this hour,” said the clerk. “What is it, a registered package? You may leave it. We’ll deliver it.”
 
“It is a registered package.” Curlie spoke slowly as he sized up the clerk and decided not to confide in him. “I can’t leave it. I must have Mr. Lieber’s own signature. And I want you to know that it is important. Mr. Lieber will thank you for letting him know I am here.”
 
“I am not sure about that,” grumbled the clerk. Nevertheless, he took down the receiver and called a number.
 
He waited a moment, spoke a few words in a low tone, then turning to Curlie said,
 
“Mr. Lieber wishes to know whether or not it is a violin.”
 
“It is,” replied the boy.
 
74
A few more words, a surprised look on the clerk’s face, then a curt,
 
“He’ll see you. Room 1080. Elevator’s over there.” A jerk of the clerk’s thumb and Curlie was once more on his way.
 
“Well, that’s that,” the boy thought as the elevator ascended. “Soon be free from the responsibility of carrying about a priceless violin.”
 
“But this other package?” There was a question. What was he to do with it, try to deliver it in person, or turn it over to the postal authorities? He knew little about that package. Some wild-eyed man in shabby clothes had paid the largest possible fee to insure its safe delivery. The address was on the first floor of a building in a doubtful section of the city. That was all he knew. Little enough, yet he was destined in time to know enough about it to realize that had it been filled with high explosive it could have been scarcely less troublesome.
 
75
He was now at the door of the great violinist’s room. He knocked, and was admitted at once. He found Fritz Lieber in a dressing gown. Beside him was a table littered with papers.
 
“Already up,” he said, nodding at the sheets of paper. “I’ve been writing music. My mind’s fresh in the morning.
 
“So you have my fiddle? Good! Grand! Where’s the blank? I’ll sign it.”
 
“There—there isn’t any blank. I—” Curlie paused in some confusion.
 
For ten seconds he looked into the frank and friendly eyes of the great master. Then, dropping into a chair, he told his whole story.
 
“I’ll say you’ve done well!” exclaimed the musician. “Saved me from some bad hours.
 
“But this other?” His eyes fell upon the third package. He read the address at a glance. Then he whistled.
 
“For them! You won’t want to go around there before daylight.
 
“But see here! What a fee they paid! What can they have that is so very valuable?”
 
“Do—do you know the people?” Curlie’s lips trembled with excitement.
 
76
“Not personally. At least they’re no friends of mine. But I know a lot about them.
 
“You see,” the violinist went on in a changed tone, “my hobby is a sort of study of people and nations and all that. How they live, how they govern themselves, what becomes of their money, and so on. And these people,” he continued with added emphasis, “are Bolsheviks. They represent the present Russian government in America. They are doing the best they can to stir up trouble here. They would gladly destroy our present social order, our government, and set up one similar to the one they have in Russia.
 
“So you see,” his tone changed once more, “they are well worth a thought or two.”
 
“Yes,” agreed Curlie, “I’ve thought of them now and then myself. And I—I’ve sort of admired them.”
 
“Admired them?” The musician shot him a quick glance. “Why?”
 
“Their courage, and all that. Don’t you know? Doing things in a different way. Putting down tyrants. Starting a government where everything is owned by the people.”
 
77
“There’s something to be said for them.” Fritz Lieber’s tone was thoughtful. “They were ruled by tyrants. There is no getting around that. They were slaves. They had a right to revolt. But now—now they have gone too far.
 
“How would you like to live in a land that denied the very existence of God?” He wheeled about to face the boy.
 
“Why I—”
 
Fritz Lieber held up a hand for silence. “In a land where the authority of the Divine Master is denied, where ‘home’ and ‘mother’ are words that have no meaning, where the government is doing its best to destroy home life, where a little girl is not allowed to play with dolls because she may want later to have a home and children to call her mother!”
 
“I wouldn’t like that!” Curlie thought of his own home and his own mother.
 
78
“The present powers that be in Russia, as far as anyone can find out,” the musician went on soberly, “wish in time to raise all children in nurseries, as we do chickens in incubators, to destroy most that has long been held sacred by the nations of the civilized world. I know, for I have looked deeply into these matters. I have a friend in the United States Secret Service.
 
“And that gives me an idea!” he exclaimed suddenly. “You say a plane forced you down. You think they wanted my violin. I doubt it.
 
“My friend,” he laid one hand on the third package, “this is what they were after. They would have it at any cost.”
 
“But what—”
 
“Who knows what that package may contain? Of late these secret agents of the Soviet, these men who spread dissatisfaction among the workers and the unemployed, have had some secret source of wealth.”
 
He took the package and shook it.
 
“No sound. And yet it is not money. A long, slim package. Who sends money so?
 
79
“I’ll tell you what, my boy!” He turned upon Curlie once more. “You’d better not try to deliver this package. Take it to the post office and get a receipt for it. That lets you out. I’ll report its arrival in Chicago to my Secret Service friend. He can have it investigated.”
 
“Thank—thanks. I—I think I’ll do that.”
 
As Curlie left the room with that mysterious package under his arm it seemed to burn his very flesh. That, of course, was sheer imagination, nothing more. And yet—
 
“Bolsheviks. Hidden source of wealth,” he murmured to himself. Then he gave an involuntary start. As he left the hotel, a shadow crossed his path, then vanished.
 
It was that darkest hour just before dawn. The alleys were deep wells of shadow. The streets were deserted. A lone milk wagon in the distance rattled over the pavement. Curlie felt in his pocket. A single bill and some change reposed there. He drew forth the bill and unfolded it. By the uncertain light he read a “one” in the corner.
 
“No taxi this time,” he grumbled. “All of eight miles, and I’m practically broke. Street car for mine.”
 
80
But there were no street cars, nor even tracks.
 
“Have to go west.” He turned a corner to trudge along in the dark.
 
His active mind began going over the words of Fritz Lieber. “Bolsheviks,” he murmured once. And again, “no church, no God, no future life, no home, no mother.
 
“And yet,” he told himself, “those men are not really criminals. They are mistaken, that’s all—on the wrong track.
 
“It takes a rather hard sort of man to force an aviator down in the dark. But then, did they do that? Can’t prove it. Can’t prove anything. Some band of robbers may have learned of the value of this package. They may have decided to force me down and take it. Well, they didn’t succeed. They—”
 
His thoughts were broken off by sounds of an apparent struggle just ahead. There was not time to step aside. Three men came tumbling into him. Before the sudden impact he went down.
 
81
He was on his feet in an instant. But during that instant something was gone. For ten seconds his benumbed senses registered nothing. Then his lips parted in an exclamation.
 
“The package! They have it!”
 
Like a flash it came to him that this bit of night drama had been staged in advance of his coming.
 
There was a sound of hurrying footsteps. He followed at top speed. The man before him dashed through a door. He followed.
 
His mind was in a whirl. The package! It must be retrieved at any cost. His position, his reputation, perhaps his very freedom depended upon that.
 
The man had gone dashing along a steel track like a narrow gauge railway. He now passed through a door and lost himself in the very depths of the earth.
 
Once more Curlie followed. This was, he thought, to be the strangest experience of his whole life. Down a stairway, narrow and steep, which ran through a cement tunnel scarcely four feet across, they went down, down, down into, it seemed, the very heart of the earth.
 
82
“Like entering a mine,” he told himself. “But beneath this city there are no mines.”
 
He paused to listen. A low rumble came to his waiting ears. It grew louder, still louder. It became a thundering, crashing confusion of sound. Then it grew fainter and fainter until it was once more a mere rumble.
 
“I don’t know where I am,” he told himself, “but I must go on.”