The craft which characterized Lorenzo Taft was hardly predicable of so massive an organization. It was an endowment of foxlike ingenuity, sinuous, lithe, suggestive of darting swiftness and of doubled tracks. The expression of blunt dismay on his big jowl dropping visibly beneath his broad yellow beard, the widening stare in his round blue eyes as he gazed about the dismal place, his heavy, lumbering motion as he carefully set the lantern down upon the cold masonry of the fireless furnace, gave no intimation of the speed with which his mind had canvassed the situation, accepted the inevitable, and fixed upon his future course. It was hardly a moment before he was on one knee beside the prostrate form of the elder moonshiner, and had drawn from over his head the grain sack that had served both to obscure his countenance and more completely secure his gag. The glimmer of the lantern, like a slow rill of light trickling feebly through the darkness, illumined the expression of eager appeal in the haggard, wild face and eyes of Copley. An instant longer was too long to wait, yet wait he must! Taft jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the other prostrate form, convulsed now in a frenzied effort to attract the attention of the new-comer, whose footsteps had brought the only hope of speedy deliverence. "Drunk agin?" he asked, in a low voice. Copley made shift to nod his head affirmatively. Then again that frantic plea for release illumined his eyes and contorted his anxious features. Taft, regardless, rose, with the swinging motion which was characteristic of him, and, with the lantern swaying in his hand, made his way to the opposite side of the furnace, where the young drunkard lay--very sober now, in good truth--cramped in every hard-bound limb, racked with the tortures of thirst, and half famished. Taft had partly unbound the ropes from about the furnace and cut them in twain, thus dissevering the companions in misery; he swiftly knotted those that held the elder moonshiner, while the ends of Dan Sykes's bonds lay loose along the floor. "Why, Dan," he cried roughly, "what sort'n caper is this?" The prostrate young fellow made an effort to rise, so strong that the already loosened cords relaxed; and as Taft emphasized his demand by a sharp kick in the ribs, and an urgent exhortation to the young sot to "quit this damned fooling," the sack which Sykes had worn some twenty hours as hood and gag, and which, since his wakening from his long drunken sleep, he had strained in every fibre by his mad lurches of fright and efforts for freedom, rolled off, his pinioned arms were at liberty, and it seemed he had naught to do but to sit up and untie his craftily bound feet and legs. "Ye demented gopher!" cried Taft angrily, as Sykes sat up stupidly, blinking in the gleam of the lantern. "What ails ye? Drunk agin?"