Again he placed his revolver against the lock, and fired quickly twice, and then hurled his weight against the door.  It gave way before him, and the lad staggered from the smoke into the damp but fresher air of the open cellar.

There, inhaling great breaths of air the while, he listened for the sound of his enemies.  Not a sound was to be heard.  The lad reasoned this out for himself.

“The shots were probably muffled within,” he said.  “I doubt if they could have been heard very far.  Now to get out!”

He made his way to the end of the cellar where he had entered in the night, and finally came upon the little window.  Then he gave vent to an exclamation of dismay.

“Great Scott!” he cried.  “I can’t reach it!”

It was true.  The window was so high above the ground that there was no way in which the lad could secure so much as a finger-hold.  He looked around for some object upon which to stand, but he could find none.

“Well, I’ll have to go out through the house,” he told himself.  “There is no help for it.”

Slowly and silently he climbed the steps once more, and as silently opened the door.  There was light in the hall, and the boy could make out which way to go.  He turned toward the room in which he had been taken prisoner and entered softly.

There, stretched out on the bed, was the Apache chief’s lieutenant.  Duval himself was not to be seen.

Hal, with revolver ready, tiptoed into the room.  He saw a revolver on the little table, and muttered to himself: 

“Careless of him.”

At that moment the man on the bed turned and slowly opened his eyes.  A cry of terror escaped him, as his gaze rested upon Hal, whom he was morally certain was in a living tomb in the cellar.

“Ghost, go away!” he exclaimed.

Hal laughed loudly, and it was no ghost laugh, either.  The man in the bed sat up.

“How did you get out of there?” he demanded, as if it were the most momentous question in the world.

“I blew the lock off the door,” replied Hal calmly.

“But your gun?  You had no gun.”

“Oh, yes, I had,” smiled Hal.  “I had two of ’em, and I’ve got ’em yet.  See?”

He pointed both straight at the head of his late captor.

“Now,” he said quietly, “get up and get out of there.”

“What are you going to do with me?” asked the man in alarm.

“Deliver you into the care of General Gallieni.”

The Apache lieutenant slowly moved toward the edge of the bed and Hal lowered his weapons.  This act almost proved the lad’s undoing.

A second revolver suddenly flashed in the hand of the man in the bed, and he cried in a stern voice: 

“Hands up!”

Hal, taken absolutely by surprise, could do nothing but obey.

“You see the tables are turned again,” said the man in the bed pleasantly.  “You should always remember that a man may keep one of his revolvers under his pillow.”