Muffled, jerky noises issued from the recess under the half tumbling counter. With an exclamation Paul darted forward, reached under the counter and felt an object that at once electrified the boy.
“Let’s pull it out, Phil!” he urged. “It may be—”
Aided by Phil, Paul dragged forth a bound form, tied hand and foot with improvised shreds of cloth, the mouth tightly gagged with a couple of kerchiefs—in a word, Billy!
“Why, Billy, you poor boy!” exclaimed Phil, whipping out his knife and in another minute releasing the cords that bound him and cutting loose the cruel gag that had been so tightly forced into the lad’s mouth that the corners of his lips were bleeding.
They bore him out of the porch to a grassy place, where with a sudden wriggle Billy sat upright, twisted his neck about, gulped a time or two, then stared at his comrades as if astonished.
“D-didn’t you hear me holler?” he asked. “But of course you didn’t. Before I was half awake they had me down out of that car trying to gag and bind me.”
“Who, Billy? Just what do you mean?”
“I mean those two chaps that caught me fast asleep under Paul’s rug on the back seat, taking forty winks when I ought to have kept wide awake.”
“Two men?” Instantly Phil’s thoughts ran back to the two strangers they had seen at Feeney’s who seemed so anxious to get away as soon as the boys arrived with Nan.
“Would you know them if you saw them? Were they the two strangers we saw at Feeney’s? Think hard, Billy!”