True to Himself | Page 8

know why I brought you here?"
"Not particularly," I returned coldly.
Duncan gave a sniff.
"I guess that's all put on."

"Not at all. What I am anxious to know is, what you intend to do with
me."
"Well, first of all I want you to get down on your knees and apologize
for your conduct toward me this morning."
"Not much!" I cried.
"You are in my power."
"I don't care. Go ahead and do your worst," I replied recklessly, willing
to suffer almost anything rather than apologize to such a chap as
Duncan Woodward.
Besides, what had I done to call for an apology? I had certainly treated
him no worse than he deserved. He was a spoilt boy and a bully, and I
would die rather than go down on my knees to him.
"You don't know what's in store for you," said Dunce, nonplussed by
my manner.
"As I said before, I'll risk it."
"Very well. Where is the rope, boys?"
"Here you are," answered Pultzer. "Plenty of it."
As he spoke he produced a stout clothes line, five or six yards in length.
"We'll bind his hands a little tighter first," instructed Duncan, "and then
his legs. Be sure and make the knots strong, so they won't slip. He must
not escape us."
I tried to protest against these proceedings, but with my hands already
bound it was useless.
In five minutes the clothes line had been passed around my body from
head to feet, and I was almost as stiff as an Egyptian mummy.

"Now catch hold, and we'll carry him into the tool house," said Duncan.
"I guess after he has spent twenty-four hours in that place without food
or water he'll be mighty anxious to come to terms."
I was half dragged and half carried to the tool house and dropped upon
the floor. Then the door was closed upon me, and I was left to my fate.
CHAPTER IV
THE TRAMP AGAIN
I am sure that all will admit that the prospect before me was not a
particularly bright one. I was bound hand and foot and left without food
or water.
Yet as I lay upon the hard floor of the tool house I was not so much
concerned about myself as I was about matters at Widow Canby's
house. It would be a hardship to pass the night where I was, to say
nothing of how I might be treated when Duncan Woodward and his
followers returned. But in the meantime, how would Kate fare?
I knew that my sister would be greatly alarmed at my continued
absence. She fully expected me to be home long before this. As near as
I could judge it was now an hour or so after noon, and she would have
dinner kept warm on the kitchen stove, expecting every minute to see
me drive up the lane.
Then again I was worried over the fact that the widow had left the
house and her money in my charge. To be sure, the latter was locked up
in her private secretary; but I felt it to be as much in my care as if it had
been placed in my shirt bosom or the bottom of my trunk.
I concluded that it was my duty, then, to free myself as quickly as
possible from the bonds which the members of the Model Club had
placed upon me. But this idea was more easily conceived than carried
out.
In vain I tugged at the clothes line that held my arms and hands fast to

my body. Duncan and the others had done their work well, and the only
result of my efforts was to make the cord cut so deep into my flesh that
several times I was ready to cry out from pain.
In my attempts I tried to rise to my feet, but found it an impossibility,
and only succeeded in bumping my head severely against the wall.
There was no use in calling for help, and though I halloed several times
I soon gave it up. I was fully three-quarters of a mile from any house
and half that distance from the road, and who would be likely to hear
me so far off?
The afternoon dragged slowly along, and finally the sun went down and
the evening shadows crept up. By this time I was quite hungry and
tremendously thirsty. But with nothing at hand to satisfy the one or
allay the other I resolutely put all thoughts of both out of my head.
In the old tool house there had been left several empty barrels, behind
which was a quantity of shavings that I found far more comfortable to
rest upon than the bare floor.
As the evening wore on I wondered