None too gently the man forced Elaine up-stairs ahead of him.
. . . . . . .
In the attic, the tramp, pacing up and down, heard footsteps approach on the stairs and enter the next room.
Quickly he ran to the doorway and peered through the keyhole. There he could see Elaine and the small man enter. He locked the door to the hall, then quickly took a step toward the door into the tramp's room.
There was just time enough for the tramp to see his approach. He ran swiftly and softly over to the further corner and dropped down as if sound asleep. The key turned in the lock and the small man entered, careful to lock the door to Elaine's room. He moved over to where the tramp was feigning sleep.
"Get up," he growled, kicking him.
The tramp sat up, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "Come now, be reasonable," demanded the man. "Follow me."
He started toward the door into the hall. He never reached it. Scarcely was his hand on the knob when the tramp seized him and dragged him to the floor. One hand on the man's throat and his knees on his chest, the tramp tore off the breathing mask and goggles. Already he had the man trussed up and gagged.
Quickly the tramp undressed the man and left him in his underclothes, still struggling to get loose, as he took Shorty's clothes, including the strange head-gear, and unlocked the door into the next room with the key he also took from him.
Elaine was pacing anxiously up and down the little room into which she had been thrown, greatly frightened.