“No doubt he plans to keep us prisoners until he can get word to his rum-running gang,” replied Ned. “There’s several thousand dollars’ worth of liquor stored down here and they don’t want to lose it.”
“Then I suppose we’ve got to wait here till they come with a truck and cart the stuff away,” stormed Dick.
“Why, before they get around we’ll probably starve to death,” wailed Tommy Beals. “What time is it, anyhow, my watch has run down.”
“It’s three o’clock,” yawned Dave Wilbur, consulting his time-piece and stretching out beside Rogers on the dump-car. “This is a bum place to sleep, but at that, it’s better than standing up all night.”
“Weary is right,” muttered Charlie Rogers, “we may as well make the best of it. We’re caught like rats in a trap and there’s nothing to do but wait till we’re let out.”
Nobody attempted to dispute this dismal fact, and after a time the five “rats” sought the least uncomfortable spots in their decidedly uncomfortable trap and settled down with such patience as they could command. An hour dragged its tedious length away and then Ned Blake roused himself from his place on the stairs.
“Fellows,” he began, “we’re caught, as Red says, like rats in a trap. I’m bound to admit that it is the result of my stupidity in giving Slade his freedom and allowing him to turn the tables on us this way.”
“Forget it!” growled Charlie Rogers. “You’re no more to blame than the rest of us. We all agreed to let him go. Five dumb-bells—I’ll tell the world!”
“Mighty nice of you to talk that way about it, Red,” was the reply, “but it doesn’t change the fact that it was I who led you into this trap. I know this and I’ve been trying to figure some way to get out of it.”
“Not a chance,” drawled Dave Wilbur. “We’ll stay right here till somebody comes to let us out—which may be today or tomorrow or next week! ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’—that’s us!”