for a moment after they were made prisoners dave and his chum thought to try an attack upon the door, in an endeavor to batter it down. but then a command from the corridor made them pause.

“now, you keep quiet in there and behave yourselves,” said a voice in fairly good english. “we are armed, and we mean business.”

“who is it who is talking?” asked dave.

“that’s none of your business, young man. you keep quiet or it will be the worse for you.”

“say, tony, you are wanted downstairs,” put in another voice out in the corridor. “there may be more of those spies around.”

“all right, carlos,” was the quick reply. then the gypsy called tony raised his voice. “now you fellows settle down and don’t try any funny work. remember we are all armed and know how to shoot.”

“look here, we want to talk this matter over,” said dave, as he heard the gypsy prepare to go below.

278“i haven’t got time now. i’ll be back later. now, no funny work remember, or you’ll get the worst of it!” and then those in the room heard the gypsies tramp downstairs. mother domoza had joined them, and all seemed to be in an angry discussion among themselves.

“oh, dave, do be careful!” pleaded jessie. “they are dreadful people, and i am afraid they will shoot us!”

“yes, you must both be very careful,” put in laura. “i heard one of them say that if our folks attempted to follow them, there would surely be some shooting;” and the girl shuddered.

“have they done you any harm?” questioned roger, quickly.

“they have treated us very rudely, and they have given us awful food,” answered the daughter of the jewelry manufacturer.

“they wanted us to aid them in a demand for money, but we would not do it,” explained laura. “we have had some dreadful quarrels, and that old mother domoza has been exceedingly hateful to us. just now, when she brought in some food, she said we must write a letter home for money, and when we said we wouldn’t do it, she caught jessie by the arm and shook her.”

each of the girls was chained to a ring in the flooring by means of a heavy steel dog-collar fastened around her ankle and to a chain which had 279another steel dog-collar on the other end passed through a ring in the floor.

“they keep us chained up about half the time,” explained laura.

“but not at night, i hope?” returned dave.

“no. at night mother domoza releases us so we can go into the adjoining room where there is an old mattress on the floor on which we have to sleep. mother domoza, or one of the other gypsies, remains on guard in the hallway outside.”

“what about the windows?” questioned roger.

“they are all nailed up, as you can see. once we tried to pry one of them open, but the gypsies heard it, and stopped us.”

the two youths made a hasty inspection of the two rooms in which the girls were kept prisoners. each apartment was about twelve feet square, and each contained a window which was now nailed down and had heavy slats of wood taken from the tumbled-down piazza nailed across the outside. the inner room, which contained the mattress already mentioned, had also a small clothing closet in it, and in this the girls had placed the few belongings which had been in laura’s suit-case at the time they had been kidnapped.

“they took our handbags with our money away from us,” explained jessie.

of course the girls wanted to know how it was 280that dave and roger had gotten on the trail, and they listened eagerly to the story the chums had to tell.

“oh, i knew you would come, dave!” cried jessie, with tears in her eyes. “i told laura all along that you would leave montana and come here just as soon as you heard of it;” and she clung tightly to our hero, while the look in her bedimmed eyes bespoke volumes.

“yes, and i said roger would come,” added laura, with a warm look at the senator’s son.

“there’s one thing we can’t understand at all,” said dave. “how was it that you left that train at crandall, went to the hotel there, and then walked out on that country road to where the automobile was?”

“oh, that was the awfulest trick that ever was played!” burst out laura. “they must have planned it some days ahead, or they never could have done it.”

“tell me,” broke in roger suddenly, “wasn’t the driver of that car nick jasniff?”

“i think he was,” answered dave’s sister. “we accused him of being jasniff, but he denied it. nevertheless, both of us feel rather certain that it is the same fellow who robbed mr. wadsworth’s factory.”

“we suspected jasniff almost from the start,” said dave. “but go ahead—tell us how they 281got you to leave the train and go to where they had the automobile.”

“you see, it was this way,” explained laura. “at the very first station where the train stopped, a messenger came through the car calling out my name. he had a telegram for me, which read something like this: ‘we are on an auto tour to boston. if you want to ride with us, leave train at crandall and meet us at the bliss house. telegraph answer from glenwood.’ and the telegram was signed, ‘mrs. frank browning.’”

“mrs. frank browning?” repeated dave. “do you mean the girl you used to know so well—edith parshall?”

“yes, dave. you know she is married, and her husband has a fine big touring-car. they left crumville for a trip a few days before we went away. they were at our house talking about the tour the night before they started.”

“i see,” answered dave, nodding understandingly. “go on.”

“jessie and i talked it over, and as we were very much crowded in the day coach—you know we couldn’t get parlor-car chairs—we thought it would be a fine thing to accept mrs. browning’s invitation. so at glenwood we sent a telegram, stating we would meet them at the bliss house in crandall. the train met with some kind of an accident, and we were stalled just outside crandall; 282but we got out with a number of others and walked to the town.”

“of course mrs. browning had nothing to do with the telegram,” put in jessie.

“just as we got to the hotel in crandall, a boy came up with a note and asked if either of us knew laura porter. i took the note, and from the way it was written supposed that mrs. browning had sent it. it stated that they had had a blow-out, and her husband was fixing the car some distance down the road, and wouldn’t we walk down there and meet them?”

“so, instead of going into the hotel, we went down the road as the boy told us,” said jessie. “he pointed out the car, and then ran away to join some girls who were in a yard not very far off. we went up to the car, and the next thing we knew we were caught up and thrown inside, and the car went down the road at breakneck speed.”

“who was in the car?” questioned dave.

“mother domoza and a tall gypsy, who we found out was tony bopeppo, the man you were just talking to. the fellow who drove the car was the chap we afterward suspected of being jasniff. he wore a false mustache and a wig, and i am sure he had his face stained.”

“didn’t you struggle or cry out?” questioned roger.

“to be sure we did! but the old gypsy hag 283had something on a handkerchief which she placed to our faces, and then we went off into something like a swoon. when we recovered, we found we were bound hands and feet with pieces of clothes-line. the automobile was going along at a lively rate, and we bumped over some terrible rocks. then we began to climb a long hill, and after a little while the automobile came to a stop among some trees. there we were met by several other gypsies, and the whole crowd made us walk to this house and marched us up to these rooms—and here we are!”

“and now they have captured you, too!” cried jessie. “oh, this is worse than ever!”

“don’t you worry too much,” whispered dave, lowering his voice so that anybody outside the door might not hear. “when we were at a town a few miles away from here, we sent word to crumville, and uncle dunston is coming out to this neighborhood.”

and then in a low voice dave and roger related how they had been following up the trail from frytown, and had captured one of the gypsies and tied him to a tree.

“oh, if we could only get word to uncle dunston!” murmured laura.

the girls had had no food since early morning, and so they were hungry. nevertheless they insisted upon it that the boys share what was on the 284tin plates left by mother domoza, and each washed down the scanty meal with a draught of water from the tin kettle.

“dave, what do you think they will do with all of us?” questioned his sister, after the situation had been discussed from several angles. the gypsies were still downstairs and in the woods surrounding the bungalow.

“their idea is to make a lot of money out of this,” was the reply. “but they are not going to do so if i can prevent it. i’m going to get out of here somehow, and then notify the authorities, and have these rascals rounded up.”

“that’s the talk!” returned roger. “come on—let us make an inspection of these rooms and see what can be done.”

“i’m going to release the girls first,” said dave, and getting out his penknife, he opened the file blade and began work on the steel band which encircled jessie’s ankle.

seeing this, roger employed himself on the band which held laura prisoner, and soon the youths had the satisfaction of setting the two girls free.

“those gypsies will be very angry when they find out that you have ruined the chains,” remarked jessie.

“we’ll have to take our chances on that,” answered dave.

285“we are still armed, even if we are prisoners,” put in roger. “i guess we could put up a pretty stiff fight if we had to.”

“oh, roger, i hope there won’t be any shooting!” cried laura, in horror.

“there won’t be, unless they start something,” answered the senator’s son.

the two young men began a careful inspection of the two rooms. although the bungalow was old and dilapidated in many places, the timbers of which it was built were heavy, and they found the walls and the floor, as well as the ceiling, intact. the only place that looked as if it might afford some means of escape was the little closet where the girls had hung up some of the articles contained in laura’s suit-case. here, by standing on a bench, dave found that one of the boards in the closet ceiling was loose. he was just about to make an investigation of what was beyond this loose board, when there came a sharp knock on the door leading to the corridor.

“i want dave porter to step out here!” said a voice. “i want to talk to him!”