After taking leave of his daughter at the River Heights railroad station, Carson Drew boarded the Chicago train. Upon arriving in the city he lost no time in dispatching the business which had brought him to the great city on the lake. He had expected to remain in Chicago a full week, but so successful were his negotiations that his business was completed a day earlier than he had anticipated.

“I may as well send Nancy a telegram and return a day earlier,” Mr. Drew decided.

Accordingly, he sent his daughter a message to the effect that he would arrive at the Cliffwood station the following morning. He then boarded the night flyer. He did not dream that the telegram would never reach Nancy. It was destined to fall into the hands of an enemy.

Oblivious of impending danger, Mr. Drew settled himself comfortably in the Pullman and took up a newspaper. The train had been moving perhaps an hour when the conductor came through and paused at his seat.

“Carson Drew?” he inquired.

“That’s my name.”

“Then here’s a telegram for you. We picked it up at the last station.”

Wonderingly, Mr. Drew accepted the envelope and quickly ripped it open. He smiled with pleasure as he read the message:

“Will meet you at the Cliffwood station.

“Well, I’m glad to know she received my message,” he thought, “though I didn’t expect her to answer the telegram. I’m greatly relieved that nothing happened to her while I was in Chicago. Somehow, I didn’t like the idea of letting her go off to that old stone house by herself. Anything might have happened.”

Relieved that all was well with his daughter, Carson Drew settled himself to enjoy the evening paper. After reading it for perhaps an hour, he tossed it aside and went out to the observation car to give the porter an opportunity to make up his berth. After smoking a cigar he returned and before he retired left an order for the porter to call him in the morning.

In spite of the sway and rumble of the train, he slept soundly and did not open his eyes until the porter called him.

“Twenty minutes out of Cliffwood, suh.”

Mr. Drew dressed himself hastily and prepared to get off at the station. He was eager to see Nancy again, for it seemed a month since he had been at home. It was nice of her to offer to meet him at such an early hour, he told himself. It was not yet seven o’clock.

The train came to a stop, and he swung from the step to the platform. Where was Nancy? Carson Drew glanced about in all directions, but his daughter was not in sight. Perhaps she had been delayed, he thought. Oh, well, no matter. He would wait a few minutes, and then if she failed to come along, he could call a taxi.

He picked up his bag and started toward the waiting room, but he had taken less than a dozen steps when he saw a man hurrying toward him. Carson Drew frowned as he saw who it was. He had no desire to meet Nathan Gombet. Undoubtedly, the man would try to argue with him again about his so-called property rights on the river.

“That fellow is a pest,” Mr. Drew told himself. “Just my luck to run into him.”

But as Nathan Gombet approached, he could not help but see that the man was laboring under great excitement.

“Wonder what’s the matter with him now?” he asked himself curiously.

Nathan Gombet came straight toward him.

“Oh, Mr. Drew,” he cried as he came up, “I have terrible news! Your daughter has been injured! You must come quickly!”

“Nancy is hurt?” Mr. Drew grasped him roughly by the arm. “It can’t be!”

“She’s badly injured. But the doctors think she has a chance to pull through.”

“How horrible!” Carson Drew groaned.

“She’s calling for you. You must come quickly!”

“Take me to her!”

In his anxiety to reach the daughter he loved so dearly, Carson Drew became almost frantic.

“Here, jump in!” Gombet ordered.

He opened the front door of a battered auto which stood near the platform. Mr. Drew, bewildered and shocked from the crushing news, obeyed without question.

Gombet scrambled in after him. He took the wheel and with one quick glance about started off down the street.

The station on this side was practically deserted and no one saw the car depart.

“Where is Nancy?” Mr. Drew demanded.

“At my house.”

“At your house?” Mr. Drew asked, in surprise. “Didn’t they take her to a hospital?”

“She was too badly injured to be moved,” Nathan explained glibly.

“Oh, my poor little girl,” Carson Drew murmured brokenly. A moment later he said, “You didn’t tell me how she was hurt.”

“In an automobile accident. Her roadster ran off into a ditch.”

“And she was taken to your place?”

Mr. Drew did not like the look on Nathan Gombet’s face. Was the man deceiving him? No, it was more likely he was trying to keep Nancy’s true condition from him. Perhaps she had been so seriously injured that she was practically at the point of death. The thought nearly drove him wild.

“The accident occurred in front of my house,” Gombet continued, trying to make his explanation appear plausible. “The doctor brought her inside.”

“Oh, and Nancy was always such a safe driver, too.”

“I didn’t see the accident myself, but they say the steering gear broke.”

“Tell me, will she live?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

The drive, though not a long one, seemed endless to Carson Drew. Nancy! His daughter! His little girl! The widowed father and the motherless girl were very close to each other. In what condition would he find her when he reached the end of this soul-trying drive? Was she conscious? Was she alive? He turned impatiently to Nathan Gombet.

“Hurry!” Mr. Drew urged. “I can’t get there quickly enough!”

“The car won’t go any faster,” Gombet grunted.

And indeed it would not. Gombet was already driving as fast as he dared. Carson Drew was so worried that he asked no more questions but kept his eyes glued upon the road.

Gombet drove furiously and they soon reached the outskirts of Cliffwood. Presently they came within sight of two large stone houses, and Nathan Gombet turned in at one of them.

“I live here,” he explained.

Carson Drew did not so much as give the house a casual glance. The instant the car stopped he sprang to the ground and started for the door. Quick as he was, Nathan Gombet was ahead of him. He opened the door for the lawyer and led the way through the kitchen where a fat, slovenly looking colored woman was working over the stove.

Had Mr. Drew not been intent upon reaching the bedside of his daughter, he would have observed that the colored woman received a significant nod from Nathan Gombet as he passed near her.

The moment the two men had passed into the next room, she walked over and quietly locked the outside door.

“This way,” Nathan directed.

He opened a door and indicated a long, dark stairway. Without hesitation, Carson Drew followed him. He went up a flight of circular stairs and at last came to a landing.

Nathan paused and indicated a door to the left.

“Your daughter is in there,” he said.

There was an eager, cruel gleam in his eyes, but Carson Drew did not notice.

“It won’t frighten her for me to go right in?” the lawyer asked anxiously.

“No, it won’t frighten her.”

Hesitating no longer, Carson Drew opened the door and stepped inside. To his surprise the room was dark. The curtains were pulled down over the windows and at first he could see nothing. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw that he was not in a bedroom. The place had every appearance of a prison.

Carson Drew realized that he had walked into a trap.

He wheeled about and faced Nathan Gombet who stood in the doorway, eying him, gloating upon him.

“What does this mean?” he demanded sharply. “Where is Nancy?”

“It means that you are my prisoner,” Gombet retorted, with an evil leer. “Before I get through with you I guess you’ll come to terms about that property!”

With that he slammed the door shut and before Carson Drew could make a move turned the key in the lock. As the old miser trudged down the corridor, his hollow laughter echoed through the house.