He heard Floyd’s hard voice more distinctly, as harsh and hard as nails. He could see the faces of his assailants more plainly, the two brutal ruffians, and the third none other than Bug Bannon. “Get out, Bagley, and close the shed door,” Floyd then was commanding. “You slip out, Bannon, and make sure no other dicks are around, and that none else is wise to this. Rope him to that ring in the wall, Gorman, hands behind him, and be sure that he’s tied fast.” “Leave that to me,” growled the ruffian. “I told him I’d get him,” Floyd added, in fierce exultation. “I warned him, damn him, to beware of the melting pot! I warned him! I told him I’d get him--and, curse him, now I’ve got him!” CHAPTER VIII. THE MELTING POT. Nick Carter never forgot the scene at which he helplessly gazed later that evening. He was seated on a bare earth floor, within four grim stone walls, to an iron ring in one of which he was securely bound. Two narrow windows in the side walls were closed with tight-fitting iron shutters, precluding the escape of a ray of light from within. The ceiling was crossed with great faded beams, between which could be seen the chinks of a square trapdoor, showing that there was a room above. A narrow wooden stairway in one corner led up to it. In one of the end walls was a door covered with sheet iron, closed and securely locked. Near by was an excavation leading into the narrow underground passage, through which Nick had been carried by his assailants, and which evidently had been quite recently made from the rag shed to this secret refuge of the outlaws into whose hands the detective had fallen. In a pile at one side of the room were numerous articles in cloth wrappings, some of which were partly displaced. Through these could be seen the glitter of yellow metal, and the dull luster of tarnished silver. Obviously, these parcels had been brought there secretly and separately, or a few at a time, by the thieves then in possession of them. There could be no mistaking what all this was--the contents of the three stolen cases--the valuable Waldmere plate. In a temporary brick structure in the middle of the earth floor a coal fire was fiercely burning, forced by a bellows thrust through the low brickwork. Above it, suspended from an iron frame, hung a heavy caldron, with a long ladle in it--and a quantity of silverware that was being rapidly melted. In the earth floor near one of the walls were numerous rectangular holes, molds for receiving the melted metal, and from some of which the silver ingots already had been pulled with an iron hook, to make room for more of the costly fluid. The room was almost as hot as an oven, and perspiration stood in great drops on the faces of the three men then at work there--Floyd, Bagley, and Gorman. Nick Carter had been sternly watching them for some time. He had found that he had solved more than the mystery of the stolen Waldmere plate.