“Well, you won’t do much locked up here, will you?” asked the man. “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Ida. “You can’t tell.” The man did not know what to make of that answer and did not reply for a moment or two. Then he said, roughly: “Nick Carter thinks that the one who did the girl came here.” Ida made no reply, but she was thinking hard. “He’s wrong. It was a New York swell. You’re working on the wrong lay.” Still Ida made no reply. “Who does Nick Carter think did it?” Ida continued her silence. “What have you got onto since you’ve been here?” Ida did not answer that question. “Why don’t you answer?” said the man, roughly. “I’ll make you answer mighty quick.” Still Ida did not speak. The man, losing his temper, attempted to reach her by passing around the table, but Ida edged away until their positions were reversed, and she stood where the man had, and the man was where she had stood. The door was open behind her. She made a dash for it. The man seemed prepared for that, for he violently pushed the table aside and sprang after her. Ida, drawing her revolver, whirled about, and, leveling her gun, called out: “Don’t come. I’ll shoot!” The man laughed, sneeringly, and advanced. Ida fired. The ball carried high, knocking off his hat. But it halted the scoundrel. Ida sprang through the door, dashed along the hall, finding the head of the stairs and rushed down them. The man followed, shouting at the top of his voice, apparently calling the name of some one. Descending the stairs Ida found an open door and rushed through it to see that she was in a small yard. Hastily glancing about she saw a door in the fence. She sprang to this and found it unlocked. In a moment she was in the street. But she was hardly through the gate than the man was upon her. Ida drew her revolver again, but this time, as she leveled it, it was knocked from her hand by a man who had come from behind a tree. She was overpowered again. In the struggle she tore the disguise from the man who had followed, and the hasty glimpse she had satisfied her that he was the man who had accosted her on the cars—the brown-bearded man. This time they tied a handkerchief over her eyes. “She’s the devil’s own,” said the voice which Ida thought was the voice of the one from whom she had just escaped. “You say she belongs to Nick Carter?” said another voice. “So she is.” “She won’t get away this time,” replied the other. The two attempted to pick her up again. While her eyes were being bandaged, Ida had seemed to make no resistance, but was busy in taking something from her pocket. But when the two lifted her up, she wriggled out of their grasp, sinking to the pavement, where she tried to do something with her hand. The two pounced on her again, and this time lifted her clear from her feet, and not gently, either. It did not appear that they carried her again through the gate by which she had escaped, but up the street a short distance and into another hallway.