“That would hit me all right,” Chick said quickly. “It could be arranged, I think.” “Go on, then. I’m with you.” Murdock introduced him to the two men—Dick Bryan and Link Magee, both in disguise. Chick recognized both, but did not betray it. He shook hands with them, then took a seat in the tonneau, with Bryan and Murdock on either side of him, Janet riding in front, with the chauffeur. Chick knew precisely what he was up against, and he went against it willingly. Murdock thought he knew, also, but the game was deeper than he so much as suspected. It was eleven o’clock when the touring car sped out of Shelby. A quarter hour later it passed through the miserable settlement known as Benton Corners, the scene of previous arrests by the Carters, and its course then lay north, as Chick was expecting. Others had passed that way since morning, however, several others, and then were waiting miles beyond to note the direction taken by this car at the only crossroad. They had traveled through the woods, and were waiting in the woods. When Chick had ridden another mile, however, reaching a desolate part of the wooded foothills, the expected occurred. He felt Murdock suddenly seize his arm with a viselike grip, and a revolver was thrust under his nose. “Now, Kennedy, you sit quiet,” he cried. “You move a finger and you’ll get all that’s coming to you.” “What’s this?” snarled Chick, shrinking. “You don’t mean——” “I mean what I say, blast you!” Murdock fiercely interrupted. “I’ve known you from the first. You are Chick Carter, the detective, and we’re going to land you with your running mate. Get a rope on him, Bryan. Lend a hand here, Link, and make him fast. I’ll send a bullet through him, if he shows fight, and that will end him. Be quick about it.” The rascals needed no second bidding, but their task did not prove difficult. For this was precisely what Chick had been expecting, and he offered no resistance, though he met their threatening remarks with predictions at which the ruffians only laughed and sneered. Half an hour later the car swerved out of the woodland road and entered a clearing. It surrounded an isolated, miserable old house, with a stable and numerous tumble-down outbuildings, the home of two members of the bandit gang, Solomon Mauler and his brother. Chick Carter, then bound hand and foot, sized up the miserable place—but appeared to have no interest in its surroundings. CHAPTER IX. THE RESULT OF THE RUSE. It was in the miserable place, in part described, that Nick Carter awoke to a realization that something unexpected had befallen him. Returning consciousness brought a sense of cramped limbs and bruised muscles, the results of the blows he had received and the violence of his fall from the moving train, when Sol Mauler rudely rolled him from the express car.