“You must take that road to the east, Amos. The other leads to——” “No, no, you’re wrong about that,” Badger quickly called back over his shoulder. “No, I’m not!” “The west road leads to Canton.” “You’re mistaken, Amos,” insisted Vic, in apparent excitement, as the car rapidly approached the junction. “We must take the east road. Mustn’t we, Claudia?” Badger slowed down, as if in some uncertainty, then brought the car to a stop just at the junction. “Well, I am not really sure,” cried his wife, doubtfully looking about—yet only to make sure that no other car was in sight in any direction. “It’s all right, Amos——” Badger was already upon his feet, interrupting her. “Nonsense!” he exclaimed, while Nick glanced up with a feeling of distrust. “If we take that road, Vic, it will——Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Carter!” Apparently by accident, while gesticulating about the road, he had knocked Nick’s derby hat from his head. Then, with a lightning like move, made as if to catch the hat before it could fall to the ground, he threw himself across the detective’s body, confining his arms to his sides. At that moment Vic Clayton had risen up in the car, standing directly behind Nick. “Now!” yelled Badger, with terrible ferocity. There was no need for the command. Already the uplifted hand of the fortune-teller was descending; a hand fiercely gripping a clubbed revolver, and thrice the butt of the heavy weapon fell squarely upon Nick Carter’s unprotected head. The tragic episode had been enacted in the fraction of a second, before Nick could realize the design, much less prevent it, and a single blow delivered as the three had been would well-nigh have felled an ox. Without so much as a groan, with every muscle suddenly relaxing, Nick dropped inert and senseless upon the floor of the car, his hair and brow turned crimson by a swift gush of blood. In an instant Badger was out upon the ground. “Take my seat, Claudia,” he hurriedly cried to his wife. “Lend me a hand here, Vic, and we’ll throw him in behind. I’ll bind him hand and foot after we start again. There, there, that will do! Now around with the car, Claudia, and drive for home as if the devil followed us!” The transfer had been made in half a minute. In another half the car was speeding back over the woodland road at thirty miles an hour—heading for Badger’s place near Brookline. Senseless, between the seats, out of view of any persons whom the speeding car might pass along the road, lay the man for whom failure only had been predicted by the desperate woman who had struck him down. CHAPTER XIII. CLOSE QUARTERS. “It’s not for me to say what you’ll do or not do, since you now appear to hold the ribbons. It’s up to you, Badger, and not for me to say.” The above came from Nick Carter several hours after the tragic episode enacted in the woodland road.