IT was brilliant moonlight. Millions of stars were shining on the velvet of the heavenly dome, but their sheen was dimmed against the vivid spread of moving colour that lit the northern horizon. In the cloudlessness of the night the mysterious blaze of the Aurora had transformed the hours of darkness.

It was somewhere beyond the city limits where the plain rose gently towards the distant, surrounding hills, and the open gave place to wide bluffs of forest land. The scene was set in a spacious clearing, with a wealth of spruce and poplar and jack-pine rising out of the tangle of undergrowth encompassing it. And somewhere about its centre stood an aged Western cedar, which looked to belong to other latitudes, other climates.

The cedar was a forest giant of immense proportions. It stood out in the splendid twilight black and overwhelming, for all its height was dwarfed by the lofty, tattered crowns of its aloofly respectful neighbours. It formed a wide canopy of shelter beneath its far-reaching boughs, matted with their manifold carpet of curious foliage. It was a shelter admirably suited to the ghostly scene being enacted beneath its shade.

Twenty white-robed, white-hooded figures stood in an unbroken circle at a point where the wide-flung boughs were at their greatest spread. Right above them, almost exactly bisecting their circle, a monstrous bough reached out supporting a dangling, rawhide rope which terminated in an ominous noose. Within a foot of this noose, gazing squarely at it, bound hand and foot, stood a white man prisoner.

For the moment complete silence prevailed while Cy Liskard’s pale eyes surveyed the thing with which he was confronted. He was sober enough now, and there was no lack of understanding in him. He knew he was the victim of no play game. For even he, comparative stranger as he was to the life of Beacon Glory, had heard of the doings of the men of the Aurora Clan.

He had offended. He realised that. He had offended these self-appointed custodians of the city’s morals, and he was searching acutely the doubtful chances confronting him.

His cold eyes passed over each silent figure in its white cloth gown. He sought to penetrate the conical hoods which enveloped each head, masking it completely and falling generously upon the shoulders. And all the time he was aware of the ugly thing which hung precisely at the level of his neck.

The futility of his search quickly impressed itself upon him. Bound fast, he was completely helpless. These people had left him with sufficient freedom to stand erect, but that was all. At length the silence, his own impotence, and the hideous threat of the dangling rope got the better of his none too generous stock of self-restraint. He stirred, and sought to twist his powerful arms free under their painful bonds. Then of a sudden his voice rang out sharply, harshly, in a characteristic challenge.

“Well? What the hell—next?”

There was fury in his challenge. There was a shadow of something else in its violence. And as the sound of it died away the silence of the night came back at him, filling him with a sense of his own utter helplessness.

A few moments later one of the white figures stepped out of its place in the circle. It came forward and halted before the hanging rope. It raised its arms and took possession of the noose, and when the rope was finally released the captive realised that the noose had been considerably widened.

Then the man stood a pace back and made a sign with outstretched hands. He beckoned in two directions. And, in a moment, the captive was seized from behind and securely held by his bound arms.

Putting forth a tremendous effort, Cy Liskard sought to free himself. It was quite hopeless; and the effort, as a result of his bonds, only cost him his balance, and, but for the support of his captors he would have fallen to the ground.

The prisoner was no longer under any illusion. The thing about to happen was obvious, and the silence of it all suddenly drove panic surging. The man in front of him had again possessed himself of the swinging noose. He approached slowly. Then, in a moment, the rope was placed over the prisoner’s head and rested loosely upon his shoulders.

The figure withdrew at once to the tree-trunk. And a moment later the noose drew sharply tight about Cy Liskard’s bull-like neck.

With the tightening of the noose the last vestige of the prisoner’s self-restraint vanished. He cried out, and his whole impulse was for blasphemy and vituperation.

“Name of God!” he cried violently. “Cut this adrift if you’re men and not swine. What have I done? What d’you want? Gold? If you’re ‘hold-ups’ I’m ready to pay. You’ve got me where you need me. Turn loose your lousy tongues. If you cut this gear adrift ther’ ain’t a man amongst you ’ud stand up to me two seconds.”

A voice replied to him. It sounded muffled, and hollow, and far-off as it came from behind the mask of the man at the tree-trunk. But to the prisoner it came in welcome relief. For it was the first human voice he had heard since his capture.

“We want nothing from you, Cy Liskard,” it said. “We aren’t out to rob dead men. You’re about to be dealt with according to the laws of the Aurora Clan.”

The voice seemed to fade out rather than to cease speaking. Then the controlling figure at the tree-trunk gave a further sign. The two men standing ward of their prisoner withdrew on the instant, and with a jerk the rope tightened viciously about the prisoner’s neck.

The man writhed under the sudden pressure. He struggled fiercely. But every effort he made only caused a further tightening of the rope. In panic and complete and sudden despair, he ceased his struggles. And on the instant the rope relaxed, and the muffled voice came again.

“Your struggles are useless,” it said. “There’s no escape from the Aurora Clan. Our men are everywhere in the city, the valley, the forest, the plain. If you broke from us now, you’d be recaptured within an hour. Our purpose to-night is simple. To-night you die—unless you swear never to return to Beacon Glory. If you swear that you’ll be freed at once, and your goods and ponies will be handed back to you here and now. There’s no alternative. No woman in Beacon will ever be insulted by you again. We’ll see to that. Remember, if you ever return to Beacon your death will be instant. You can choose. You’ve two minutes in which to do so.”

The ballroom was a blaze of light. The raised boxes about the walls were crowded with resting couples refreshing themselves at the expense of their host. The band, which was more brazen than seemed necessary, was blaring out a fox-trot with a haunting melody, which seemed to be the joy of the heart of the uniformed man behind the slide trombone. The softer strings were almost drowned under his super-human efforts, and even the notes of the cornet were hard put to it to obtain a hearing.

The dancers were many and various in their methods and appearance. There were dress suits in evidence among the men, and the women’s garments ranged from prodigal scantiness to redundancy. There were burly men and fat. There were lean creatures who looked to spend their days on short rations and hard work. While the women appeared, as they ever do to the casual onlooker, a rainbow spectacle of femininity pleasing enough to the masculine eye careless of the details of their variegated costumes.

Doc Finch was among the stouter dancers and his partner was only little less ample. They looked comfortably hot and in no danger of foot entanglement. Jubilee was striding vigorously with a good-looking woman whose beauty owed much to her gown and the careful application of facial make-up. Bad Booker was smiling over the shoulder of a young thing who was frankly absorbed in the joys of the dance without regard for the company she was keeping. While Jake Forner, his chief clerk, was straining every nerve to keep pace with a woman whose efforts suggested gymnasium training rather than terpsichorean. He was perspiring freely, and a far-off look of troubled concentration gazed out of his student’s eyes, leaving it a matter for speculation as to when the breaking point would be reached.

It was a scene of real and comparatively decent human revelry. Outwardly, at least, its decorum was complete. The night was still young enough for the human nature gathered there to retain possession of the cloak of seeming which the occasion imposed. It was a bal masque without its phantasy of costume.

Claire Carver and Ivor McLagan were in possession of one of the boxes. The waiter had just deposited a tray of refreshments on the table between them. True to her fixed rule the girl had ordered coffee and a savoury sandwich. But the oil man had no such scruples. His refreshment was a Rye highball.

Claire had abandoned her game immediately after the discomfiture of the stranger gold man. The thing had startled her out of her usual equanimity. Trouble of one sort or another was by no means new to her. But in her eight months of the life of the Speedway it had been the first time she, herself, had been subjected to downright insult. She had always understood the risk she ran. Her mother and friends were always behind her ready to remind her if in her more generous moments of happy optimism she should chance to forget. But for all that the shock had been no less, and for once she had been glad enough to accept the company of the man who had so promptly defended her, and turn her back on the shrine of the temple at which she worshipped.

McLagan read through the mask of levity she was endeavouring to impose upon herself. Out of his love and great sympathy his pity had promptly leapt. It stirred him to her further aid. And so he had gladly availed himself of the mood that had made her laughingly appeal to him for the dance she had refused to the man who had so grossly enriched her.

They were talking now as they rested, watching the antics of the buoyant crowd moving rhythmically to the brazen efforts of the band.

“You know, Ivor,” Claire said smiling but reflectively, “those white fixed folk get me scared to death. It’s the first time I’ve seen them close up. Once before I saw them, or thought I did. I was out in the automobile, and I kind of thought I saw a bunch of them move off the trail ahead of me in the dusk and hide up in the bush. I wasn’t sure, but I was scared enough then. It’s queer. How—how did they know to-night? How did they come along right on time? was it Max on the ’phone? I didn’t see Max around at all. Say, does he run them? Are they sort of his police? They scare me. I was glad enough to see them get around. You see, that feller didn’t put his hands up to you when you had him covered. But I sort of feel we don’t just know where we are with such a gang operating.”

The girl was gazing down on the moving crowd while she voiced her apprehensions, and the man was left free to feast his eyes on the picture she made in her beautiful gown and the hat that was so perfect a crown to the wealth of vivid hair beneath it. He was smiling happily in the reward her presence bestowed upon him for his efforts in her defence.

“It’s kind of queer, Claire,” he said, and there was that curious harshness of tone which he rarely seemed able to avoid. “But some way I don’t feel it’s for you to be scared a thing. If this gang is what it’s reputed I’d say it’s only the folks with unclean minds and ways that need to be scared. But there certainly are things calculated to set folks worrying the way the Clan learns and acts when things are wrong. I don’t reckon Max has a thing to do with ’em. Though you never can tell. I was talking to Max when we came down. I allow he’s quite an actor. But—well, if he was acting it was mighty clever. He was raising hell to learn how those folks got in on his precious Speedway.”

The girl turned from the scene that so entertained her.

“Was he?” She shook her head. “He’s got a head as long as—as the body of that girl dancing with Burt down there,” she said with a laugh. “He’s not going to give himself away. I’d say he’s a great bluff when he feels like it. You know I’ll have to quit the Speedway or——”

“Or what?”

McLagan’s eyes were no longer smiling.

“Or marry him.”

The girl’s smile had passed. Her eyes were no less serious than his.

“You mean that?”

McLagan was leaning across the table with his hands supporting his plain face. He waited while Claire sipped her coffee and nodded over her cup. Then he went on deliberately and almost harshly.

“You can’t! You mustn’t! You shan’t!”

He was stirred out of his usual calm. And Claire’s gaze lowered before the hot fire she beheld leap into his eyes.

“He’s wealthy,” she said slily.

“And he’s like a tame cat. The creature you hate.”

Claire set her cup down and laughed happily.

“That’s no argument,” she cried.

“Argument?” McLagan shook his head. Then he added significantly: “If you want argument I can give it you.”

“Not that sort,” Claire warned him sharply. “I have your promise. But I’d like to hear any other—from you.”

The man sat up. He leant back in his chair and gulped down half his highball. His moment of unrestraint had passed. He was smiling again, but a feeling something approaching bitterness laid hold of him that Claire would tolerate only his friendliness. He gazed into her face and smiled. But he was yearning with a passion that well nigh devastated his sternly controlled composure. He shook his head.

“No, Claire. You mustn’t marry Max,” he said. “You know him as the actor he is. I know him as he really is.” He leant over the table again. “Say, I wouldn’t marry a she-wolf to Max.”

“Why?”

McLagan shrugged.

“Leave it at that,” he said brusquely. “Here, kid,” he went on quickly. “You’re right. You must quit the Speedway. Quit it all. It’s not for you. Don’t you see? Oh, yes! I know. The folks are good to you. Sure they are. They’re mostly men, and you’re a swell girl that sets them crazy to be good to you. But it’s all on the top. There isn’t a thing underneath but the ordinary muck of human nature. You’re going to get it sometime when I’m not around, if you keep on. And there’s sure no need for you to keep on. I——”

“But there is.” Claire’s interruption came sharply, and she held up a warning finger at the threat of storm she again read in the man’s hot eyes. “Here, Ivor. I said plain argument. Listen. I’m making money in bunches. Big bunches. I need the money. And I love the game. But some day I’ll need to quit. I know that. But it won’t be till my luck breaks, or—Max turns. If Max turns first I’ll need to get out quick. No! I’ll never marry Max! I’d sooner marry—Satan. Oh, yes! When that happens I’ll get out quick. I know. I’m wise. You don’t need to be scared for me. But meanwhile I go right on—— Hello! Say—look!”

The girl was pointing down the ballroom. Her eyes had widened. They were sparkling with a queer light.

McLagan was leaning forward. He was following the direction of the pointing finger, peering out half hidden behind the curtain hangings. And as he gazed upon the queer scene that had startled his companion the braying of the band crashed awkwardly into complete silence, and the dancing floor was cleared as if by magic.

Three white-robed figures were making their way in silent procession down the length of the room. They moved slowly, and with monkish dignity, their high-pointed mask hoods, with their goggling eyeholes, creating an atmosphere that hushed the onlookers to dead silence. Behind them the arched entrance was crowded with similar ghostly figures. But the illusion in this direction was largely counteracted by the array of heavy guns held ready for prompt action by hands all sufficiently human.

It was a tense moment. The silence was deathly. Only the sound of the footsteps of the moving figures broke it. The whole company was shocked to impotence. And the eyes of all were preoccupied between the array of arms in the far archway and the progress of the moving trio. The “hold-up” was complete.

The three figures halted before the buttress pillar which centred one of the walls, and on which was fixed the notice-board whereon was pinned the dance programme for the night. They gathered about it, and for some moments their movements clearly told of their purpose. Then they moved away, returning as they had come, without haste and without a word. Again they passed over the polished floor. They reached the archway and their supporters. They passed through the closed ranks. Then, in a moment, the whole of the silent white army had withdrawn as abruptly as it had appeared.

A rush, a scramble followed. Men and women, even the orchestra men, hurried over to the notice-board. The dance programme was lying on the floor below it and its place had been usurped by a large sheet of paper covering the whole extent of the board.

McLagan and Claire had abandoned their box and joined the curious crowd. They were standing on the fringe of it, gazing at the white sheet of paper bearing its written notice in crude, hand-printed lettering. There was no need to get nearer. The text was plain enough and large enough to be read from across the room.

Claire turned to the man at her side.

“Max isn’t around,” she said significantly.

McLagan shook his head.

“He’ll be along,” he said, and glanced expectantly in the direction of the arched doorway.

The crowd was recovering itself. It was moving away, and comment and laughter made themselves heard in every direction. The bandsmen were hurrying back to their dais where the conductor was summoning them with sharp taps of his baton on his music stand. The boxes, too, were rapidly refilling. Doctor Finch approached McLagan and Claire. He laughed with a little uncertainty.

“Things are kind of busy,” he said. “Max’ll need to have a sharp eye. These boys don’t bluff any.”

McLagan shook his head.

“No,” he admitted seriously. “They don’t bluff. If that boy shows up inside the Speedway I wouldn’t give five cents for Max’s fire policy.”

Claire looked round quickly. The band had just started a One-step. She had been interestedly watching the entrance.

“Let’s dance, Ivor,” she said quietly. “Max has just come in.”

McLagan glanced round quickly. Max, dark, sleek, picturesque, was coming towards them hurrying down the room. His face was unsmiling, and to those who knew him the signs were sufficiently ominous.

McLagan quickly took possession of the girl and drew her away from the region of the notice-board and Max, and as the latter came up and stood himself before the insolent threat it contained, he found himself alone with such emotions as the message inspired. Claire and McLagan, like the rest of the dancers, were observing him half-amusedly, half-doubtfully as they glided about over the polished floor which was so much his pride. They knew that his wealth and power as the reigning monarch of his beloved Speedway had been challenged, and they wondered as to its possible effect upon a man of his temperament.