Dusk began to gather within half an hour, and darkness quickly followed. Margate lighted a small lantern, so hooding it with an empty box that its rays could not be seen from outside, but in its feeble glow the three crooks continued to sit and discuss their knavery. Their faces and figures looked grim and threatening in the dim light cast upon them. Presently, still crouching behind the grain chest, Patsy heard the thud of hoofs and the grinding of wheels in the gravel, and Margate arose at the same time, saying quickly: “Here comes Ruff with the wagon. I told you he’d show up promptly.” “Good enough,” cried Deland. “We’ll lose no time in getting away.” “I must go to the house for my cap,” growled Margate. “Go ahead. That won’t take long, Jim?” “Wait till I douse this glim. There would be something doing, all right, if this dead wagon were seen here?” “It has been seen, you rascal, and I can see your finish,” thought Patsy, with grim satisfaction. He had heard the arrival of the wagon, drawn up near the front of the stable. He heard Ruff greeting Deland and Pitman, when they hastened out. He saw Margate extinguish the light, then stride out and close the door, followed by the sharp click of the padlock. Patsy stole out from behind the grain chest in the inky darkness, then crawled under Hanlon’s huge black wagon and found the iron ring in the trapdoor. “It’s the same old way for mine,” he muttered, while he noiselessly opened the trap. “I’ll not let these rats give me the slip. I’ll find out where they are going and where they take their plunder, at least, if I get no chance to hold them up. I’ll get them sooner or later, by thunder, if it takes a leg.” Indulging in these cogitations, Patsy dropped quietly through the opening, and, without waiting to close it, he crept out through the open space under the stable, and to a point between it and the old shed near by. He then could see the wagon some ten feet away and headed toward the street. It was a large covered one, and it stood nearly opposite the space between the two buildings. The driver had not left his seat. Pitman and Mortimer Deland already had climbed in and were seating themselves on two boxes under the leather top, that occupied by Ruff being too small for all four. Patsy could hear them talking, and he now saw Jim Margate returning from the house. “Gee! they may give me a long chase,” he said to himself, crouching low in the darkness. “If they drive fast, I may have some difficulty in keeping up with them, or----” He broke off abruptly, crouching lower and peering intently through the darkness.