PATSY IS FORCED TO SLEEP.
When they had him bound to their satisfaction, Patsy’s captors laid him
on his back and looked him over.
He saw, too late, how it had happened.
Close to the rock was a thick bunch of bushes.
His judgment had been perfect, for it had taken him to the exact spot
where there was an easy way down to the gulch.
It was the way these men always took to get there.
But, unluckily for the detective, they had posted sentinels at that
spot.
His captors had been within reach of him from the moment he arrived.
Why they had not attacked him at once could only be guessed.
Probably they were so surprised that they didn’t know what to do at
first.
And maybe they thought he might be a prospector, or anybody but a
detective, who would go away as soon as he had taken a look.
“Wal, by gosh!” muttered one who seemed to be the leader of the
sentinels, “I reckon this’ll make some difference with what they’re
jawin’ about down thar.”
Patsy tried a bluff.
“I’d like to know what you mean,” he began, indignantly. “I haven’t
done anything to you——”
“And we won’t do a thing to you,” interrupted the leader, harshly—“oh,
no! we won’t tech ye! Pick him up, boys.”
Two of the men took Patsy on their shoulders, and they went stumbling
down the side of the gulch.
Snell and the others looked up in the greatest surprise when they heard
the sentinels coming.
All the men got to their feet, for some had been sitting, and guns were
shown freely.
“What ye got thar?” demanded the chief of the gang.
“A spy,” replied the leader of the sentinels.
“Find him up thar?”
“Yes—behind that rock. He crep’ up jest as ef he knowed thar was
suthin’ to see below.”
“The skunk!”
“Prob’ly,” went on the sentinel, “he was put onto the thing by them
galoots,” and he pointed to Snell and his companion.
“That’s it!” roared more than one, angrily.
“So this is what ye call bein’ on the square, is it?” exclaimed the
chief, turning to Snell’s companion, fiercely. “Ye make a deal to meet
us here alone to talk business, and give the tip to a pryin’ detective,
do ye? An’ do ye think ye’ll git outen it with hull skins? Wal, I don’t
think!”
The ruffians were growling angrily and watching their leader.
It needed only his word to make every one of them empty their revolvers
into Snell and his companion.
Snell was horribly frightened.
“I don’t know anything about this,” he stammered; “I give you my word
of honor——”
“Rats!” interrupted the leader, scornfully, “what’s your word of honor
worth?”
“Plug ’em full of holes!” cried another.
The men raised their weapons, and it did look as if there would be a
double murder on the spot.
“He’s right!” said Patsy, quietly.
The leader turned swiftly toward him.
“What’s that ye say?” he demanded; “who’s right?”
“The man who just spoke.”
“Him?” pointing to Snell.
“Yes. I don’t know who he is.”
“And I s’pose ye don’t know him, nuther,” pointing to Snell’s companion.
“I certainly don’t.”
It was plain enough that nobody believed the detective, but he breathed
easier.
His interruption had gained time.
The men were not so likely now to shoot in a hurry and ask questions
afterward.
Patsy had been set on the ground with his back to a rock.
Snell’s companion was looking at him sharply.
It was to him the leader spoke next.
“I s’pose, Jim Leonard,” he said, “thet you’ve got a word of honor to
stack up thet ye never seen this man afore, eh?”
“He’s a stranger to me,” replied Leonard. “I never saw him before, and
we took all the pains we could to keep from being followed. Snell’s
been in town three days without seeing anybody who was on his track.
Why should anybody be on his track, anyway?”
“Why!” roared the leader, “to get us behind the bars, you fool! Ain’t
that reason enough?”
He turned again to the detective.
“P’r’haps you’ll tell us how ye come here?” he said.
“Certainly,” replied Patsy. “I saw these two men in town. It was plain
enough that they had good business of some kind on. I took ’em for
prospectors and thought they’d struck a good thing somewhere. It wasn’t
a straight thing to do, but I followed ’em to see what they’d got.”
This was a story that it was very easy for the rough Westerners to
believe.
Evidently they were struck by it, for they looked at each other
doubtfully.
All except the leader.
He turned his eyes from Snell to his companion, and then to Patsy, and
remarked, calmly:
“You lie—every one of ye.”
Then he addressed his men.
“We won’t go off at half-cock,” said he; “these geezers hev done us
dirt, but mebbe we’d better talk it over afore we do anything.”
He spoke then to the sentinels.
“Stay here and use yer guns, ef any of ’em tries to scoot. We’ll go
further down the gulch and chin about it.”
The sentinels nodded and the leader and the rest of his men went down
the ravine until they were out of sight.
Now and then their voices could be heard as they argued, but what they
said could not be told.
Once they sent a couple of men up to take Snell’s companion, Jim
Leonard, down to talk with him.
They sent him back after half an hour, and continued their discussion
until the sun was setting.
Then they all came slowly back to the spot where Patsy lay.
The young man who had been speaking when Patsy was captured, was
talking with the leader.
“I’m sure it’s the best way,” he was saying.
“Wal, Harry,” returned the leader, “you’ve got a sound nut on yer
shoulders, an’ you can talk better’n most of us, but I dunno.
Howsomever, we’ll try it. As you say, the main thing is to get the
stuff.”
“We certainly can’t get the ransom, if we don’t give ’em a chance to
pay it,” said Harry.
The leader nodded.
“After dark,” he said, shortly.
It grew dark early in that deep ravine, but it was not till fully two
hours had passed that the gang began to move.
In the meantime, they smoked and talked in low voices, or lay on the
ground and snoozed.
At last the leader stood up and said:
“Bring ’em along.”
Patsy had tried at first to see if he could free his hands. In the
darkness he tried again, but it was of no use.
These fellows had known how to tie a knot, and they kept the noose
around his neck, with a warning that they wouldn’t mind leaving him
there for crows to pick.
That was only too plain. They cared little for the detective. It was
Snell and Leonard that they were interested in.
The gang returned to Helena in pairs mostly.
Two went beside Patsy, and one each with Snell and Leonard.
The rest trailed along—some in advance, some behind.
When they came to the edge of the town they scattered over different
streets.
No one meeting any of them would have suspected that a score of men
were coming into the city together.
Patsy’s guides took the noose from around his neck then, and cautioned
him that if he tried to break away they would shoot.
The caution wasn’t necessary, for the detective had no idea of doing
anything except stick to the gang until he had found out all about the
business that had brought them together.
They came at length to a house in a quiet street.
Patsy’s guides took him in there, opening the front door with a key,
and led him to the kitchen.
The house was dark when they arrived, but it had gas, and this was lit.
Curtains were pulled down at the windows, and they waited in silence.
Others came in from time to time.
The last to arrive were Snell and Leonard, and the men who had been
walking with them.
It was understood that they had been to Bronco Bill’s, where Snell had
hidden the “stuff.”
When all were there, the leader said:
“Now, ef ye’re ready fer business at last, let’s git at it without any
palaver.”
“We’re ready,” responded Leonard.
“Prove it.”
Leonard glanced at Snell, who slowly drew a wallet from his pocket, and
took from it a number of one-thousand-dollar bills.
The eyes of the men in the gang flashed greedily.
“I’d ruther ’twas gold,” muttered the leader, “but it looks straight
enough.”
“It’s perfectly straight,” said Snell, closing the wallet.
“Wal, but what are ye doin’ now? You brought that stuff to hand over,
didn’t ye?”
“Certainly; when you deliver the goods.”
It was Snell who responded, and his voice was calm now.
He seemed to feel that his victory was won.
Leonard, on the other hand, looked worried.
“Guess that’s right enough, then,” remarked the leader. “We’ve got the
goods, an’ we’ll show thet we can meet ye. Harry——”
He interrupted himself suddenly, with a glance at Patsy.
“’Twon’t do,” he added, in a decided tone; “not jest yet. We don’t
want no witnesses to this perceedin’. I don’t perfess to say thet this
geezer’s a detective, but dead men tell no tales. I wisht we’d bored
holes in him out thar in the hills.”
“Better not do any shootin’ here,” suggested one of the men.
“Right; but thar’s a good way, jest as quiet an’ peaceable as a
graveyard. Take him into the basement.”
“What!” exclaimed Harry, “you wouldn’t do that?”
“Wouldn’t I? In course I would,” replied the leader, harshly. “You go
an’ git the goods, Harry, an’ mind yer own business. Two or three of ye
gag that geezer and tie his feet. Then take him to the basement. Hear?”
They heard.
Patsy saw young Harry’s face pale as he went slowly from the room.
Others proceeded promptly to obey the leader.
“I wonder if my time has really come at last?” thought the detective.
He could make no resistance, and tried none.
It was useless, too, to bluff the men or try to plead with them.
They stuffed his own handkerchief in his mouth and tied a cord tightly
around his ankles.
Then they lifted him, while the rest of the gang and Snell and Leonard
looked silently on, and took him from the room by a door that opened
upon a stairway.
Down the stairs and along a short passage they carried the helpless
detective, and at last laid him upon a cemented floor.
Not a ray of light was there.
The men stumbled in the darkness as if they were not familiar with the
place.
“Say yer pra’rs, tenderfoot,” remarked one of them, with a harsh
chuckle, as he started away.
“He’s got nerve,” said another, noticing that no sound came from their
victim’s throat.
“More likely he’s scared silly,” returned the first.
One of them was feeling along the wall.
“Hurry up,” said the other.
“It’s all right, I’ve found it,” was the reply from a corner.
“Full on,” said the first.
“So ’tis.”
“Come on, then.”
They went out.
Patsy heard the door close behind them.
Then their steps stumbling along the passage and upstairs.
At last he heard the opening and shutting of a door at the top.
The sound of the leader’s rough voice came to him, evidently asking a
question.
“Is the trick done?” or something of that sort.
He could imagine the men’s short answer.
Then probably the gang got down to business again with Snell and
Leonard.
It would do no good to try to tell what Patsy’s thoughts and feelings
were.
He had been unlucky enough before to get captured by men who meant to
kill him.
On other occasions he had worked himself free, or Nick or Chick had
come just in time to rescue him.
Nick was thousands of miles away.
Chick wasn’t on this strange case at all.
The cords upon his hands and legs were very firm.
And yet the young man felt no despair.
“Somehow!” he thought, and he went to rubbing his back as well as he
could against the hard cellar floor.
He thought he might wear the cords through in time.
In time—good Heaven! would there be time?
What was that he smelled?
An enemy more fearful than the bullets of assassins.
He understood now what he had been doing when the man had been feeling
along the way.
The villain had been hunting for the gas jet.
He had found it and turned the cock “full on!”
The close cellar was filling rapidly with the poisonous stuff.
Patsy’s throat tickled.
He coughed and partly dislodged his gag, but it was only to take more
gas into his lungs.
With all his might he wriggled so that the cord might be cut or worn
enough to break.
He could make no effect on it, so far as he could tell.
Every strain simply made the cord cut deeper into his flesh, and he was
as helpless as before.
The poisoned atmosphere choked him.
He felt his head whirling.
The whole house seemed to be going around and around.
In the confusion of his mind he seemed to hear voices in a loud
discussion.
They ceased—there was no sound—except a fearful roaring as if he lay at
the bottom of Niagara Falls.
And then, a dreadful feeling that he might as well give it all up.
A man had to die some time.
One time was probably as good as another.
He had done what Nick told him to as well as he knew how.
He hoped that Nick and Chick would somehow get at this gang.
Patsy was very tired and sleepy.
The whirling and the noises ceased. His brain was at rest.