HE WAS GAZING INTO THE BARREL OF A REVOLVER.
The man, who had said nothing further, presently withdrew the revolver and took a comfortable seat on the window-ledge. As the silence continued, Alex began somewhat to recover himself, and fell to wondering what the other bandits were doing while this man was watching him.
A few moments later the answer came in a single upward click from the instruments.
“There—wires cut, ain’t they?” said his captor.
“Yes, I suppose,” said Alex, bitterly.
“They sure are,” said the voice from behind the mask. “And when we get through, them wires’ll be cut so you won’t be able to fix ’em up in a hurry.”
Fifteen minutes later a second masked and heavily armed figure appeared. “Every wire cut five poles back on either side of the station,” he announced briefly. “It’ll take a lineman half a day to fix ’em up again, and we’ll be twenty miles away by that time. Now we’ll put the hobbles on the youngster, and git.”
Often Alex had longed for just such an adventure as this. The final disenchantment was anything but glorious. Roughly seizing him, the two men forced him stiffly upright in the chair, drew his arms about the back of it, and there secured them, wrist to wrist, drawing the knot until Alex almost cried out in pain. Then, as tightly, they bound his ankles to the lower rungs, one on either side.
“Now one of us is going to watch from the woods for a spell—we’ll leave the back door open, so we can see right in—and if you make a move, you get this quick! See?” said one of the desperadoes, tapping his pistol significantly.