Chick signified that he understood, and held out both hands, as if he wished to be helped to the sidewalk.

Venner promptly raised both of his--only to suddenly hear a quick, metallic snap, and feel links of cold steel confining his wrists. Their icy chill went through him like a knife, and he reeled as if stricken a blow.

"Good G.o.d!" he gasped, hoa.r.s.ely. "What's this?"

Chick and Patsy were already beside him.

"This," said Chick, sternly, "is your wind-up!"

"My--"

"Stop! Not a loud word, Mr. Venner, or worse will be yours! Now tell me in whispers--where is Nick Carter?"

The sight of a revolver thrust under his nose had a potent effect upon the dismayed man, yet even while he saw that he was cornered, he seized upon the hope that Kilgore and the gang might discover and release him.

"Find him yourself, if you want him!" he hissed through his teeth, with an ugly frown. "I'm cursed if I'll inform you!"

Chick did not delay for arguments or persuasion. With Patsy's help he speedily put Venner in the same helpless condition in which he had left Dalton, stretched upon the ground, within a rod of one another.

Then he threw off his disguise, and shifted his revolvers to his side pockets.

"Now for yonder house, Patsy, and to see what the remainder of this gang are at," said he. "Come with me, and have your guns ready."

"I'm with you," cried Patsy, coolly. "Guns and all."

A dash up the gravel walk brought them to the front door, which Venner had left partly open.

There they paused and listened.

Not a sound came from within the house; but overhead the tempest now was breaking, with frequent crashing peals of thunder, and flashes of lightning that illumined all the landscape. Rain, too, now began pelting down on the veranda roof.

"We'll steal in and see what we can find," whispered Chick, drawing one of his revolvers.

"Go it, then."

He led the way, and Patsy followed. The silence in the house mystified them at first. It appeared to have been entirely deserted.

When they reached the door of the dining room, however, Chick discovered on the floor the disguise which Nick had discarded.

"I have it, Patsy," he cried, softly. "They have nailed Nick, just as he expected, and have taken him somewhere to confine him."

"Perhaps in the cellar," suggested Patsy.

"I hardly think so, yet we'll have a look."

Moving as quietly as shadows, they entered the kitchen and easily located the cellar door. It was closed and locked, with the key remaining.

"Evidently they're not down there," whispered Chick.

"Let's try the upper floors," suggested Patsy. "They may be laying for us up there, but I reckon we're good for them."

"We'll take the chance, surely. Come on."

They crept through the hall again, and then mounted the broad stairway, which led to the next floor.

There the utter silence and the semidarkness quickly convinced them that they were on the wrong track.

"The stable," muttered Chick, suddenly. "We'll try the stable."

"They certainly have vamosed this ranch," remarked Patsy.

"Plainly. Come on, then, and we'll try the stable."

Together they started downstairs.

A moment later Kilgore, Pylotte and Matt Stall came flurrying into the house by the rear door.

In the bright light of the broad hall each party discovered the other at precisely the same moment, and Kilgore instantly guessed the truth.

With a cry of rage, he whipped out his revolver and fired point-blank at the two men on the stairs.

"Down 'em, boys!" he yelled furiously. "Down 'em, or our game is done for!"

His bullet glanced from the bal.u.s.ter rail near Chick, and buried itself in the wall behind him.

"Drop them, Patsy!" he shouted, instantly. "Shoot to kill! It's them or us!"

"Let her go, Gallagher!" roared Patsy, pulling both guns.

Then, amid the tumult of the breaking tempest outside, there began a fusillade the thunder of which rivaled that of the night, and which, though comparatively brief, was as fast and furious as any man there had ever experienced.

Pylotte went down at the first shot from Chick, however, with a bullet in his brain.

Then shot followed shot with lightning rapidity.

Both detectives sprang down several stairs to evade the rain of lead, for both Kilgore and Stall were rapidly emptying two revolvers.

A bullet singed Patsy's ear.

Another dislodged Chick's hat.

Then Kilgore reeled with a slight wound in his left arm.

A score of shots were fired and wasted, meantime, for all hands were dodging about the hall and stairs in an utterly indescribable fashion.

It was the warmest kind of a fight for fully three minutes.

Then Chick got a line on Matt Stall from behind the bal.u.s.ter post, and dropped him with a ragged wound in his hip.