“Nothing doing there!” exclaimed the captive. “Well, here’s for some more noise.” He yelled and shouted at the top of his voice, accompanying himself by beating on the door with his bound fists. Silence was his only answer.
Once more Bill hopped to the window. He looked out, hoping he might see some one to whom he could appeal. Then, as he gazed helplessly out, he noted a nail driven into one side of the casement. At once a plan came into his mind.
“If I can rub the rope that binds my hands, up and down over the head of that nail, I may fray the ropes enough to break them,” he remarked aloud, for it made it seem less lonesome to speak thus. “Once I get my hands loose—” Bill did not finish, but he had great hopes of what he could then do.
He began at once with the rusty nail as a knife. It was hard work, and several times his hands slipped and his wrists were scratched, but he kept at it, and finally found that the cords were giving way. He worked faster, and then, with a sudden strain he found his arms free. Then it was an easy matter to loosen his feet, and he stood up unbound.
“Now for a try at that door!” exclaimed the lad, and after giving the knob a vigorous turn, and vainly pulling on the portal he began to kick it violently.
He was engaged in this, at the same time yelling and demanding to be released, when the door suddenly opened. So suddenly in fact that Bill toppled outward with it, and was caught in the arms of a big man who entered quickly, carrying the captive backward with him, and immediately locking the portal again.
Surprise bereft the lad of speech for a moment, and the man, after gazing at him, and noting the ropes on the floor, remarked:
“Well, you got rid of ’em yourself, I see. If you’d have waited a little longer I’d have taken ’em off. I’m a little late getting here with your breakfast.”
“Breakfast!” gasped Bill. “You’d have taken off the ropes! Say, what kind of a game am I up against, anyhow?”
“Oh, I guess it’s all right,” said the man easily.