“What do you say to that?” thundered Badger, striding closer to Patsy, with his features livid and convulsed with rage. “I dunno what she’s talking about,” protested Patsy coolly. “You lie!” roared Conley. “You are one of Nick Carter’s helpers, or——” “Stop a bit!” interrupted Badger, with frightful austerity. “We’ll soon know whether he is or not!” “What d’ye mean?” “I’ll get the truth out of him!” snorted Badger. “Bring him after me, back to the garage. I’ll make him confess the truth and tell us where we stand. We’ll string him up by the neck to one of the beams—and there he shall hang unless he tells the whole truth! Bring him along, you two, and look lively! I’ll go on ahead and open the doors.” “Yes, there’s something doing!” thought Patsy, contemplating his imminent peril. “They are going to try hanging me—but they’ll try in vain! Yet I rather hope Chick may show up in time to save my precious neck.” These thoughts passed through Patsy’s mind while he was being rudely hustled out of doors by Conley and Hyde, while Amos Badger hurried on in advance. Both women followed, too alarmed by the impending peril to endure the suspense of remaining behind. “They care nothing for me, or my neck,” thought Patsy. “Like the she devils of ancient Rome, once having tasted blood, they thirst for more.” As he was hurried into the basement by Conley, he saw that the sliding door had been opened and that Badger was again lighting the lantern. This no sooner was done than the dastardly knave, blind to all except the impulses of his utter desperation, quickly threw a rope over a beam near the ceiling, then knotted a slip-noose around Patsy’s neck. Patsy stood directly under the beam, as cool as if he was only about to be weighed. “Get hold of that rope, you two!” cried Badger fiercely. Conley and Hyde sprang to the lax strip of line. The two women, bred though they were to evil, drew back with awed white faces and dilated eyes. “Now, youngster, what do you say?” thundered Badger, confronting Patsy with face livid and eyes ablaze. Patsy met him eye to eye. “Only what I’ve said already,” he curtly replied. “Nothing more?” “Nothing more, mister!” “Nor less?” “Nor less!” “Up with him!” roared Badger, turning fiercely to his confederates. Patsy felt the rope draw taut around his neck. Just then, however, from some quarter outside, there rang out upon the still evening air the sharp, spiteful crack of a revolver. It was mingled with a single agonized yelp—and a bloodhound lay stretched upon the greensward, shot squarely between his eyes! CHAPTER XIX. NICK CARTER’S ESCAPE. Silence and darkness. It was in these that Nick Carter was left confined at an earlier hour that eventful evening, bound hand and foot, and with his back propped against the cold stone wall of the disused wine-vault.