"Hello, Jack," called Rand, meeting the former on the street the following morning, hurrying along in his usual fashion, "what's the latest?"

"About what?" asked Jack in turn.

"About everything. Anything new about the robbing of Judge Taylor's office the other night?"

"Haven't heard much yet," replied Jack. "I was just going around there to see if they had found out anything more."

"Looking for clues?" questioned Rand.

"Not so much for clues as news," responded Jack. "Perhaps I can pick up some of both. You never can tell when they'll pop up. Don't you want to go along?"

"And see how you do it," laughed Rand. "I don't mind if I do. Written up yesterday's story yet?"

"About your heroic rescue of a lovely maiden from the angry waves. Of course; did it last night. Want to see it? I was going to put a head on it: 'Heroic Rescue by a Creston Boy.'"

"You don't mean it, Jack Blake!"

"Wait until you see it on the first page, double leaded, with a scarehead."

"Really and truly?"

"Really and truly."

"Please don't, Jack."

"Why, don't you want it?" asked Jack in mock surprise. "I thought you would be delighted to see your name in print."

"You know I don't want to be made ridiculous!"

"All right," responded Jack, "I'll kill it if you say so, but it would have made a sensation."

"I don't doubt that," laughed Rand, "but I'd rather not be the victim. I wonder," he went on musingly, "if we will ever see them again."

"Who?"

"The Whildens."

"Hardly likely," replied Jack. "If we do they will probably have forgotten us."

"Still I'd like to know how she came out."

"Oh, she came out all right," replied Jack lightly. "A little cold water won't hurt her. You know, the doctor said she was out of danger.

"It's a curious thing how they got in," he went on after a little pause, his thought turning on the robbery, which was uppermost in his mind just then.

"I don't see anything curious about it," returned Rand.

"You don't!" cried Jack. "Maybe you can explain how they did it then."

"I don't know as it needs any explaining," retorted Rand. "They got in a trough of the waves, and--"

"Trough of the waves!" cried Jack.

"What are you talking about?"

"Why, about the Whildens, of course. What are you talking about?"

"Oh, pshaw! I was talking about the burglars."

"Oh, I see," said Rand. "How did they get in?"

"That is what we would all like to know," replied Jack. "There isn't anything to show how they got in or how they went out, unless they went out through the door and locked it after them."

"That is possible, isn't it?" asked Rand.

"I suppose it is possible," admitted Jack, "but I don't see how they managed it."

"Not if they had a key?"

"It must have been that way," agreed Jack, "but where did they get this key? That don't lessen the puzzle. It was a Yale lock, and keys to them are not to be had easily, and they must have had one for the front door, too."

"Well, if they could get the one they could get the other," said Rand.

"I suppose so," agreed Jack. "It probably wouldn't be much harder to get two than one."

"Why couldn't they get in through a window?" pursued Rand.

"The windows were all locked on the inside as well as the doors."

"I see. They must have been professionals."

"Then I don't see what they wanted there."

"Why not?"

"Because they wouldn't get enough swag to make it worth while," answered Jack,

"Swag?" questioned Rand.

"Oh, that's slang for plunder," explained Jack.

"You seem to be pretty well up in their slang," commented Rand.

"Oh, that's part of the newspaper business," was Jack's response.

By this time they had come to the building in which Judge Taylor had his office, which was on one of the main street corners of the town. A little description of the building is necessary here to make the situation clear. It was an old-fashioned, two-story brick structure, having been erected some years before. At the time of its erection there were no other buildings near it, and there were windows on all four sides. Some time later another building had been put on the adjoining lot, leaving a space of a little more than a foot between the two, thus making the windows on that side practically useless. The wall of the other building upon that side was blank, and it was upon this space that the side windows of the judge's office opened. In the rear was a yard of the width of the building and about twenty feet deep, with a low fence upon the side next to the street.

"Let's take a look around before we go upstairs," proposed Jack.

"All right," responded Rand. "I'm green at this business, you know."

Going in at the front door Jack led the way into the hall, from which a broad flight of stairs ascended to the second story. By the side of the stairs was a narrow passage, through which Jack continued to a small hallway in the rear, in which were two doors, one giving access to the cellar, the other opening on the yard in the rear.

"Do you think that they could have come in through the cellar?" asked Rand, when they entered the back hall.

"I had thought of that," replied Jack, "but every one says that these doors were bolted, and I don't see how they could bolt the doors after they had gone out."

"It does seem just a little difficult," admitted Rand.

Going out in the yard, the boys examined the rear of the building.

"They couldn't have got to the windows up there without a ladder," decided Rand, after a study of the situation. "And you say the windows were fastened?"

"That's what they say," responded Jack, "and I don't believe burglars carry ladders around in their kits. Besides there is an electric light right here, so that a ladder could be seen quite plainly from the street. "I wonder," he mused, looking into the space between the buildings, "if any one could get up through there."

"Not unless he could fly," returned Rand. "There isn't room enough for a man to get in there, and he couldn't manage a ladder if he got in."

"A boy might," remarked Jack.

"But this wasn't a boy's work," objected Rand.

"Can't always tell," replied Jack, "............