“How are you feeling, Jimmie?” was Ned’s solicitous inquiry.
“All right,” replied the lad. “Untie my hands, will you?”
“Gee, but you’re an artist, Jimmie!” cried Jack. “We’ll get you a job as ‘Tricko, The Handcuff King’! I want to say right now,” the boy went on in mock seriousness, “there are very few people who can tie themselves up so completely and so quickly as this job has been done!”
“You win the argument!” decided Jimmie, ironically. “If I get my tutor where I can lay hands on him I’ll show him a trick or two that wasn’t in the first chapter. He’s in for some instruction all right!”
“What happened, Jimmie?” asked Ned, carefully passing his knife through the bonds that confined the other’s hands and feet.
“Well, when I came slamming along into the warehouse I was only a few feet behind the milk maid!” began Jimmie. “I at once crept in on tiptoe, because I reasoned that he would be slugging along, making considerable noise. I didn’t know that there were goods in here.
“I couldn’t see him anywhere. From that I concluded that he had either stopped or had taken to tiptoeing, too. I had my ‘gat’ ready and started in. I felt along the bales and boxes a ways. Just as I heard you fellows come into the door something tripped me and down I went.
“Before I could say a word he had shoved that thing into my mouth, pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket, tied it around my face and then tied my hands together under my knees. Say,” the lad continued earnestly, “that guy never got his knowledge out of a correspondence course! He’s been there and helped skin ’em! He’s smooth!”
“Where’s your automatic?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know,” replied Jimmie. “Let’s have the bug a minute. I’m sure I heard it fall, but I can’t say whether Mackinder got it or not!”