The chase was arrested the next moment, however, in a startling way.
“Look out!” shouted Grantley.
His tone was peremptory and shrill with excited warning.
Siebold paused abruptly and turned his head. Grantley was not looking after the scurrying girl at all, but at the bin, just above the heads of the struggling men.
A head and a pair of upraised arms, with something grasped threateningly with both hands, had suddenly appeared there, the rest of the body being hidden by the boards which formed the front of the coal bin.
“Hoff!” cried Siebold.
But his warning was too late. A heavy shovel whistled through the air and descended with a sickening thud on the German’s head.
CHAPTER XI.
VARYING FORTUNES.
It was Nick Carter who had come to his assistant’s rescue—and, incidentally, had taken a hand just in time to halt Siebold in the latter’s pursuit of Adelina.
Contrary to Patsy’s expectations, the detective had chosen to crawl through the opening into the next bin, instead of through the little door which Hoff had opened at the front.