ght cars had always kept the hoboes well supplied with
such articles.

"Now, I'm going to make the hoboes a punch," he said to Patsy. He was
searching through a cupboard while he spoke, and from there he produced
a large bottle of laudanum. "I will have to use this," he continued. "It
is the only thing here which will do at all, and as it has an
excessively bitter taste, I will have to make a punch in order to
conceal it. But it will do the work I want done better and more safely
than anything else."

"You'll have to use a washtub for the punch, to make enough for all of
them," said Patsy. "And is there enough laudanum?"

"Plenty; and there is a couple of pails. They will do as well as a tub.
Now help me. We have lemons, and sugar, and everything that we require,
here in this cupboard. But first, let's drop Cremation Mike into the
cellar with the cases."

They did that, and replaced the trapdoor; then they sliced lemons--all
that they could find; they found a pot of cold tea, and this they dumped
into the mess with the laudanum; and upon all this, bottle after bottle
of the whisky was poured into the pails until they were filled to the
brim.

"Now, Patsy," said the detective, "remember that you are old Bill
Turner. I want you to go out among the men right now, and tell them that
Madge and Handsome have fixed them all up a punch, and if they will form
in line and pass in front of the door of this cabin, each one of them
can have two drinks of it. And it would be a good idea if you should act
as if you had already taken your own two--or several. It will give them
confidence."

"I can do it," replied Patsy, and he went out.

After a little Nick heard the murmur of voices before the cabin, and he
stepped to the door and opened it; and then he found that the men,
without an exception, save those who were on guard at different
places--he found that eighty men had formed in line, and were ready for
the treat that had been promised them.

He carried out the two pails and stood them on the porch; and then with
a dipper in one hand and a goblet in the other, he called out:

"Come up slow, now; one by one. Don't be in haste. Remember there are
two drinks each, for you, and no more. These two pails will just about
do it. I'm doing the trick for Black Madge, who happens to be busy just
now."

And so they began the procession past him; and so he doled out the
concoction he had arranged for them, and watched them gulp it