With the thought he scrambled forward over heaps of loose earth to the firmer floor of the main part of the cellar, until he stood over a figure trying to rise. At the same time down stumbled his comrade, saying:
“I’ll get you yet—mind that!”
Satisfied now that it was not Phil at his feet, Billy brought down his heavy rubber tube over the man’s head, who sank back uttering a groan of pain. At the same time Phil, reaching the bottom of the stairway, saw something twinkle in the dirt at his feet. He picked it up.
“Here is the pistol he was trying to shoot me with, Billy. Don’t let him up while I feel for some cord I brought along.”
Billy, standing astride the prostrate man, took the pistol, a small affair. As the stranger groaned and moved Billy gave him another sharp tap with the tubing that seemed to settle his hash, as the boys later expressed it.
Fingering the weapon, Billy found that it was loaded, all except one chamber. He looked up, saying:
“I bet a nickel against a cent that this is the same pistol that shot—what’s his name?—Horr.”
Meantime Phil, having produced several cords that he had taken from the tool box of the Six, proceeded to bind the stranger’s wrists together behind his back as he lay half stunned by Billy’s attack. While so doing, he stumbled against a heavy object that proved to be a cheap suitcase, filled by something that rattled metallically as it was moved. Having tied the man’s wrists, they half carried him up the stairway, through the back room and into the old office. Here Billy stood guard armed with the tube and the pistol. This last they discovered was enough like the one Billy had at home to be its mate. Also one chamber being empty, Phil at once felt sure—with Worth—that they now held the very weapon that had been fired at Horr, the supposed comrade of the man now recovering his senses at their feet.
“Watch him close, Billy,” cautioned Phil, “while I go below and get that suitcase, and look around a little before we go back to Feeney’s.”
“Don’t be uneasy, Phil. I’ll watch him all right. Ain’t I just getting even for the way those two did me when they ran away with our car?”