"The first toll-gate, Garth! Who pays the bill?"
And Garth struggled, and could not move his hands, for George cried out, and Slim started to raise the bottle as the horse of a mounted policeman halted across their path. The car stopped.
Swiftly the policeman bent down, shaking his fist at the driver.
"If you want to run me down," he shouted, "why not give me a chance to make my will? You might be a good chauffeur for a baby carriage. Go ahead now, and keep to the right. I ought to run you in."
Slim grinned and lowered the bottle. George sank back. The dryness of Garth's gagged mouth choked him. How could he continue to face such moments?
During the remainder of that swift ride he sat voiceless and helplessly trussed. He smiled grimly, recalling the promise Nora had drawn from him not to resist. He was as little able to resist as he had been when bound on the floor of the warehouse cellar. Nora, he tried to tell himself, would not condemn him to the torture of that bottle opposite; nor would she, he was willing to swear, throw her father's career and reputation to the winds. She would try some trick, not realizing how many precautions Slim had taken.
He struggled again futilely to free his hands, to loosen a little the coat, buttoned tight about his own overcoat, across his body and his legs. Nora, his logic told him, could have hit upon no plan dexterous enough to control these men before they could carry out their monstrous threat. Yet what difference did it make? If she didn't intervene, Slim would let him have it at the border anyway.
The night was disturbed only by the sound of their passing, nor at the station was there any indication that an effort would be made to halt them. So tightly was Garth bound Slim had to help him from the automobile. He stood beside him while they watched through the station window George as he purchased three tickets from a sleepy-eyed agent. The gag was as tight as at first. Even if it had not been for the acid Garth was helpless.
A dull rumbling made itself audible far to the south, and increased until the rails commenced to hum. The headlight gleamed—hastened closer. The locomotive grumbled by, drawing an interminable string of mail and express cars and Pullmans, shrouded for the night.
At the very end, far from the station lamps, were two lighted day coaches. Slim and George led Garth there, and helped him to the platform between. The rear car was a smoker, comfortably filled with sleepy men. Slim turned his back on it, urging Garth into the car ahead which housed scarcely more than a dozen passengers—men and women in various attitudes of somnolence. He nodded his satisfaction. It became clear that for him the gravest strain was at an end. And the car was chilly. The dozing passengers wore wraps and hats. The fact that Garth retained his great coat would pass unnoticed.