h you about now.

"Well," she said, "it's done, and it can't be helped; and Nick Carter
has been here, and he's gotten away again; but, all the same, we've got
Chick in our power, and if I do to him as I feel like doing now, he will
regret the day that he ever took my trail."

"If you leave him where he is now, Madge, he'll do that," said Grinnel,
laughing softly.

"Why, what would happen to him there?" she demanded quickly.

"For one thing the rats would probably eat him up before very long, and
it wouldn't be the first meal of that kind they've had down there,
either."

"You didn't tell me where you put him," said Madge.

"I don't tell anybody exactly where that place is, Madge. It's a little
hole that I've dug out underneath the cellar of this house; if it was
anywhere in the old country it would be called a dungeon; as it is, I
call it the grave--people who go there have a habit of never coming out
again."

The detective was anxious to know what had become of Phil, the
bartender. It was evident that the man had done nothing to betray the
detective, since these two were talking so quietly just inside the door
where Nick was listening.

The next words, while they did not exactly reassure him, made him think
that, after all, the bartender might be carrying out his contract by
attempting to set Chick at liberty himself.

"Is that where you sent Phil a few moments ago?" she asked. "Down there
to the dungeon where you put Chick?"

The detective could hear Grinnel chuckle and then reply:

"Yes, Madge, I sent him down there to fasten the young fellow up, so
that there would be no chance of his getting loose. You see, he was
senseless when we chucked him in there, and I forgot to make him fast,
as a sailor would say, but there are staples in the wall down there, and
there are chains fastened to those staples, and there are nice little
steel bracelets at the end of those chains, that fit beautifully around
a man's ankles. I sent Phil down to lock them fast."

"I thought nobody knew where that place was except yourself," said Madge
quickly.

"Oh, Phil's all right. I have to have some confidence in my men here, or
I couldn't run the place."

"All the same," the detective heard her murmur, "I'd rather you had left
Chick to me. They're a slippery lot, those detectives, and I shall be
uneasy----"

The detective heard no more of what was said, for at that instant he was
greatly startled by hearing a sound behind