not
been relieved.

But when he appeared with the pail of punch, and told them what had
happened--that every one had been served with the same thing--they
forgot their sorrows and had their share as the others had taken theirs.

And here, in order to make doubly sure, Nick had given each of the
drinks a larger dose of the sleeping draught than he had served in the
valley. As soon as the men had drunk what was given them, and had been
refused more, he left them, followed by Patsy, and returned through the
cave to another entrance.

And here again the operation was repeated in the same manner, an idea of
suspicion never once entering the head of any of the men; they were far
too eager for the drink which the thoughtfulness of their mistress had
provided for them.

"They'll be suspicious when they begin to feel drowsy all at once,"
suggested Patsy, as they moved away.

"Let them," replied Nick. "We won't be there, and not one of them will
be able to go very far before he drops in a stupor. I have fixed it, all
right."

They found the second party as eager as the first, and one of them
already the worse for too many drinks from a bottle he had had in his
pocket; but they took the medicine that Nick portioned out to them as
the others had done, and they in turn were left alone to drop off to
sleep as they would; for they had been awake all night, and now it was
broad daylight. They figured that they deserved some sleep.

At the third entrance the four men were already asleep--all but one of
them, and he was drowsing; and Nick, in his character of Handsome,
pretended to be angry at first. He pretended to refuse to give them the
punch that had been sent to them until they begged so hard that he
finally relented.

"Why," said Patsy, when they left them, and took their way toward the
fourth, and last, place--the hole under the Dog's Nose, near the place
where Handsome and Madge were prisoners, "it's all as easy as living on
a farm."

"And not half so interesting," laughed the detective.

They walked past the movable rock behind which the two prisoners were
confined without so much as devoting a glance to it, for they were both
intent upon accomplishing this last installment of capture through the
medium of the laudanum; and here they found the four men who were on
duty, just about ready to mutiny because they had not been relieved.

But the presence of Handsome--or the man they believed to be
Handsome--quieted the