There were shouts outside. How did he get inside? Was that more shooting? Perhaps he had found his gun after all. Perhaps he was shooting the men before the Chief got there, and that was bad, because he didn't feel competent to judge about a thing as serious as shooting with that dirty rag in his mouth. He must get rid of it somehow. Doggone it! He had somehow got his hands all tangled up in cords, and he must get them out no matter if they did cut. He had to give the Chief a signal.
He struggled again with all his might, and something somewhere gave way. He wasn't sure what, but he seemed to be sinking down, perhaps down stairs or down the mountain, somehow so it was down where the Chief—! where Mark! The light in his brain went out and he lay as one dead in the great dusty front bedroom where a man who had sinned, hanged himself once because he couldn't bear his conscience any longer.
And outside in the front door yard five men struggled in the dark, with curses, and shots, and twice one almost escaped, for Link was desperate, having a record behind him that would be enough for ten men to run away from.
But after the two were bound and secured in the car down at the foot of the mountain, the Chief lingered, and looking up said in a low tone to one of his men: “I wonder where that boy is!”
“Oh, he's all right,” said his assistant easily, “he's off on another piece of business by this time, Chief. He likes to seem mysterious. It's just his way. Say, Chief, we gotta get back if we wantta meet that train down at Unity t'night.”
That was true too, and most important, so the Chief with a worried glance toward the dark mountain turned his car and hurried his captives away. Now that they were where he could get a glance at them in the dim light of the car, he felt pretty sure they were a couple of “birds” he had been looking for for quite a while. If that was so he must reward Billy somehow. That boy was a little wonder. He would make a detective some day. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take him on in a quiet sort of way and train him. He might be a great help. He mustn't forget this night's work. And what was that the kid had said about a secret underground wire? He must look into it as soon as this murder trial was off the docket. That murder trial worried him. He didn't like the turn things were taking.
XXIV
In the gray of the morning Billy came to himself and stared around in the stuffy grimness everywhere. The gag was still in his mouth. He put up his hand involuntarily and pulled it out, and then remembered that his hands had been tied. Then he must have succeeded in breaking the cord! The other hand was still encumbered and his feet were tied together, but it happened that the well hand was the freed one, and so after a hard struggle he succeeded in getting out of the tangle of knots and upon his feet. He worked cautiously because he wasn't sure how much of what he remembered was dream and how much was reality. The two men might be in the house yet, very likely were, asleep somewhere. He must steal down and get away before they awoke.