The second man forced the strap gag into his mouth and buckled it tightly behind his victim's head. This done, the agent's hands were lashed fast with a rope. Then the gun was withdrawn and the wretched agent was assisted into his clothes, after the pockets had been searched for weapons.
In a quarter of an hour the whole transaction was completed, and, with hands securely fastened behind his back and the gag in his mouth fixed cruelly firmly, David Slosson stood ready to follow his captors.
During all that time he had used his eyes and all his intelligence to discover the identity of his assailants, but without avail. Even their great size afforded him no enlightenment, with their entire faces hidden under the enveloping masks.
In silence the light was extinguished. In silence they left the room and proceeded down the stairs. In silence they came to the waiting hayrack outside. Here Slosson beheld the other two masked figures, one on the wagon, and the other waiting at the rear of it. But he was given no further chance of observation. His captors seized him bodily and lifted him into the cage beneath the hay, while one of the men got in with him and now secured his feet.
After that more hay was thrown into the vehicle, till it looked like an ordinary farmer's rack, and then the horses started off, and the prisoner knew that, for some inexplicable reason, he had been kidnaped.
Mrs. Carbhoy had been concerned all day. When she was concerned about anything her temper generally gave way to a condition which her youthful daughter was pleased to describe as "gritty." Whether it really described her mother's mood or not mattered little. It certainly expressed Gracie's understanding of it.
To-day nothing the child did was right. She had called her physical culture instructress a "cat" that morning, only because she had been afraid to enter into a more drastic physical argument with her. For that her "gritty" mother had deprived her of candy for the day. She had refused to do anything right at her subsequent dancing lesson, in consequence, and for that she had had her week's pocket-money stopped. Then at lunch she had willfully broken the peace by upsetting a glass of ice-water upon the glass-covered table, and incidentally had broken the glass. For this she was confined to her school-room for the rest of the day, and was only allowed to appear before her disturbed mother at her nine-o'clock bed hour.
When a very indignant Gracie appeared before her mother to fulfill her final duty of kissing her "good-night," that individual was more "gritty" than ever. She was in the act of opening a bulky letter addressed to her in a familiar handwriting. Gracie knew at once from whom it came. Instantly the imp of mischief stirred in her bosom.
"What nursing home will you send Gordon to when he gets back?" she inquired blandly.
Her mother eyed her coldly while she drew out the sheets of letter-paper. She pointed to a wall bell.