rth."

He chuckled again. He took his own handkerchief and borrowed George's.
With the two he improvised a gag which he fastened skillfully in the
prisoner's mouth. Then he turned the great collar up so that the gag was
hidden.

"You've a swell chance to make trouble now, Garth. That's how I check up
on a bull's promises. If anybody tries to stop us or to snitch you free
you'll get the acid in those shining peepers without being able to move.
You'd better pray everybody keeps straight."

Enough light entered from the front to draw an ashen glow from the acid
which he held at his side perpetually ready.

Beyond the driver's back Garth could follow their route among tortuous
downtown thoroughfares into lower Broadway. They went then at a discreet
pace straight through the heart of the city. He watched the lights flash
by, the impatient traffic, the crowds, hurrying and voluble. Such
things, taken with the grim man opposite and his unique threat, became
like one of those dreams which project against a familiar background
incredible and grotesque details.

The car at last drew a hollow response from the pavement of the Broadway
bridge. Slim moved restlessly.

"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 hi