he strain no longer; it was beyond endurance.

"What's moving back there?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

There was a moment of utter silence; then, a man's voice said in low,
cautious tone.

"The fellow ain't dead, Mac; anyhow he seems able to talk yet."

"All right, we'll find out what he's got to say--go on along."

West sat up, his heart bounding with sudden remembrance.

"My God! McAdams is that you?"

"You have the name--who's speaking?"

"Matt West. Good God, but this is like a miracle. I'd played my last
card. Come here, one of you, and cut these strings. I cannot even move,
or stand up. Is it really you, Mac? Yes, yes, I am all right; they
bruised me up a bit, of course, but that is nothing. Now I have a chance
to pay them out. But who are with you? and how did you come to be here?"

McAdams ran his knife blade through the lashings, feeling for them in the
dark. Neither could see the other, but West realized that another man had
crept up on the opposite side of him, and crouched there silently in the
blackness.

"Need any help, Mac?" the latter questioned in a whisper.

"No, I've got him cut loose. This is the lad I told you about, Carlyn.
You go on back, and, as soon as West gets limbered up a bit, and I hear
his story, we join you out there. Then we'll know how the ground lies."

The fellow crept away unseen, and McAdams gripped West's hand.

"Say, but this is mighty good luck, old boy," he blurted out. "I was
afraid you'd gone down in that yacht last night."

"You were! How did you know about it?"

"Stumbled on to the story, the way most detectives solve their mysteries.
That is, I stumbled on some of it, and the rest I dug out for myself. It
won't take long to explain and perhaps you better understand. They told
me at the office when I got back about the _Seminole_ being tied up at
the Municipal Pier, and that you had gone down there. Well, I made it as
quick as I could, but the yacht was three hundred yards out in the lake
by the time I arrived. There wasn't a damn thing to take after it in,
and, besides, just then, I didn't really know any good police reason for
chasing her. First thing I did was to try and find you, so we could get
our heads together. But you wasn't there, and so I naturally jumped to
the conclusion you must have got aboard someway. Say I combed that pier,
believe me, West, and finally I ran across a kid who put me wise. He saw
you go across the deck, and into the cabin w