"He is all right now, Handsome. He cannot hurt you. I have put him out
of business--and I don't think we had better let the men know that Nick
Carter has been among them. Let them wreak their vengeance upon this
fellow, and upon the other--that little Jap. As for Nick Carter himself,
I will take care of him. He will never come out of that cellar alive.
And now, Chick, I want you to answer me a question."

"You will save your breath if you do not ask it," replied Chick. "I am
not answering questions just at present."

"Not to save yourself, or your master?"

"I know very well that nothing that I can say will have the least effect
upon my fate, or upon Nick Carter's," he replied.

"Very good," she replied slowly; and then to Handsome: "Take him away,
Handsome. Take him out there to the men. Tell them who he is, and that
they may do as they please with him. I think the quicksand bog would be
as good a place as any for him; or the fire tree; but they may do as
they please--so long as they kill him. Take him away."

Chick, realizing that it was all up with him, and that he might as well
make a fight for it, leaped forward quickly, full at the woman,
intending to seize upon her, and hold her as a shield; but even as he
attempted to do so, the floor beneath him sank under him for the depth
of two feet, and before he could recover his balance, Madge had thrown a
table cover over his head, and in another moment Handsome had thrown him
to the floor, and called the others to his assistance.

And so Chick was tightly bound and borne away a captive--to what fate he
could only imagine.

"You need not bring the Jap here at all," Madge called after them. "Let
my hoboes take him with them, along with this one; but do you bring the
man Pat to me at once."

And five minutes later Handsome reappeared with Patsy in tow, only that
Patsy was not a prisoner--as yet.

"Now, my man," said Madge coldly, "you will have to give a pretty
straight account of yourself. You were found in bad company."

"Sure, ma'am, don't I know the same? I've been apologizing to meself
ever since I discovered it, an' if Handsome here had only left me alone,
faith, I'd have settled wan part of me misgivings then and there, so I
would. I had me doubts about the bunch from the beginning, ma'am, when
they came a-sneakin' up to me fire, and eatin' of me grub; and when
that other gazabo dropped from the trees, sure, I was certain of it. I
was after kapin' me