Ned, helpless as he was, had no recourse but to obey Kennell's rough order to "Look alive." In the meantime the traitorous Silas roped the lad's hands. In a few minutes they reached the back gate. Outside it stood a powerful touring car. There was a lamp on the rear gate, and Pulsifer, as he went by, reached up to turn it out. "The less light we have, the better. No knowing who is skulking around," he remarked. As he straightened up to reach the lamp, however, his eyes fell on Ned, whose face was illumined momentarily by the light. Pulsifer gave an exclamation of delight. "Look who's here, Dave," he cried exultingly; "little Johnny Fixit. Don't you remember him?" "Why," exclaimed the elder Pulsifer, "that's one of the rowdy kids who tried to get us out of our seats on the subway." "Tried to," thought Ned; "I guess we came pretty near doing it." "Oh, this is luck," grinned the younger Pulsifer; "talk about killing two birds with one stone. We'll attend to you, my young friend--you dirty young spy. We'll put you where what you overheard to-night will do you no more good than--this." He stepped lightly forward and deliberately struck the Dreadnought Boy an open-handed slap on the cheek. Ned's hands struggled with the rope that Kennell had twisted about his wrists. He palpitated, ached, and longed with a superhuman intensity, to get at the younger Pulsifer, and beat his sneering face into an unrecognizable mass. It was a lucky thing for that young man that Kennell had tied his knots with sailor-like thoroughness. In a few minutes--by the time they had been bundled into the tonneau of the machine, in fact--Ned was once more calm. He recognized the stern necessity for keeping absolutely cool. On the seat beside him in the tonneau lay the senseless form of the inventor. As a guard, Kennell, Schultz and Hank were seated also in that part of the car. Dave Pulsifer took the wheel and his brother sat at his side. Silas, the heavy-browed, occupied the small extension-seat at the elder Pulsifer's side. With the engine muffled down, till it made scarcely any noise, the car glided off into the night, leaving behind it what Ned could not help feeling was the last hope of rescue. As the wheels began to revolve, Dave Pulsifer leaned back, and, with one hand, extended to Kennell a revolver. "If our guests should object to our little surprise party and moonlight ride, just give them a leaden pill," he suggested pleasantly. "Say, guv'nor, it would be pretty dangerous firing off a gun at this time of night, wouldn't it? It might bring the alligator-zills, or whatever they call these Cuban cops, about our ears, mightn't it?" The younger Pulsifer laughed lightly. "No danger of that," he said. "In ten minutes now we'll be out in a desolate part of the country, inhabited only by a few cattle-grazers, and they've got too much horse-sense to inquire into a casual shot. So don't hesitate to pepper away if our guests get obstreperous."