"Which way have they gone?" he cried, beginning to look for a door that led from the room.
By this time he was accustomed to the dim light, and he saw a door. In a twinkling he had tried it, but found it was locked or bolted on the farther side.
"The fellow had little time and no hands to lock a door. He may not have gone this way. He must, for this is the only door to the room, save the one by which I entered. He went out this way, and I will follow!"
Retreating to the farther side of the room, Frank made a run and plunged against the door.
It was bolted on the farther side, and the shock snapped the iron bolt as if it had been a pipe stem.
Bang! Open flew the door, and Frank went reeling through, revolver in hand, somewhat dazed, but still determined and fierce as a young tiger.
At a glance he saw he was in a small room, with two doors standing open—the one he had just broken down and another. Through this other he leaped, and found himself in a long passage, at the farther end of which Barney Mulloy was still guarding the head of the stairs, once more singing the wild "fighting song."
Not a trace of the ruffian or the kidnaped girl could Frank see.
"Gone!" he palpitated, mystified and awe-stricken. "Gone—where?"
That was a question he could not answer for a moment, and then——