Dave had several hours to himself. He detected no sound or movement outside of the strange room he was in. It was dreadfully dull and lonesome, and he wondered what the outcome of his present adventure would be.
It was well along in the day, when Dave from sheer weariness and worry had lain down among the heaps of burlap, that a diversion came to monotony. He started up as he heard voice outside of the door. Then the padlock rattled, the door opened, and some one stepped across the threshold. The visitor stared about to locate Dave, and spoke the words:
"That you, Dashaway?"
The room was lighter now, with the door half open. Dave rubbed his eyes and strained his gaze, and took a good look at the speaker.
"Don't you know me?" challenged the latter.
"Oh, yes," replied Dave, "I see now. You are the gentleman we rescued from the lake at Columbus."
"I don't suppose you think me much of a gentleman just now,
Dashaway," spoke Ridgely, for, he was, in fact Dave's visitor.
His tone was somewhat regretful, and not at all unfriendly. Dave was shrewd enough to discover this, and politic enough to take quick advantage of it.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Of course you are with the crowd who had me locked in here."
"I'm sorry to say that's true," responded Ridgely.