“Oh, that was ripping, Harry!” cried Dick.  “But do you think you’ve killed him?”

“Killed him?  No!” said Harry, with a laugh.

“He’s tougher than that, Dick!”

But he looked ruefully at the spy.

“I wish I knew what to do with him,” he said.  “He’ll come to in a little while.  But —­”

“We can get away while he’s still out,” said Dick, quickly.  “He can’t follow us and we can get such a start with our motorcycles.”

“Yes, but he’ll know their game is up,” said Harry.  “Don’t you see, Dick?  He’ll tell them they’re suspected —­ and that’s all they’ll need in the way of warning.  When men are doing anything as desperate as the sort of work they’re up to in that house, they take no more chances than they have to.  They’d be off at once, and start up somewhere else.  We only stumbled on this by mere accident —­ they might be able to work for weeks if they were warned.”

“Oh, I never thought of that!  What are we to do, then?’

“I wish I knew whether anyone saw us from the house or if they didn’t — !  Well, we’ll have to risk that.  Dick, do you see that house over there?  It’s all boarded up —­ it must be empty.”

“Yes, I see it.”  Dick caught Harry’s idea at once this time, and began measuring with his eye the distance to the little house of which Harry had spoken.  “It’s all down hill —­ I think we could manage it all right.”

“We’ll try it, anyhow,” said Harry.  “But first we’d better tie up his hands and feet.  He’s too strong for the pair of us, I’m afraid, if he should come to.”

Once that was done, they began to drag the spy toward the house.  Half carrying, half pulling, they got him down the slope, and with a last great effort lifted him through a window, which, despoiled of glass, had been boarded up.  They were as gentle as they could be, for the idea of hurting a helpless man, even though he was a spy, went against the grain.  But —­

“We can’t be too particular,” said Harry.  “And he brought it on himself.  I’m afraid he’ll have worse than this to face later on.”

They dumped him through the window, from which they had taken the boards.  Then they made their own way inside, and Harry began to truss up the prisoner more scientifically.  He understood the art of tying a man very well indeed, for one of the games of his old scout patrol had involved tying up one scout after another to see if they could free themselves.  And when he had done, he stepped back with a smile of satisfaction.

“I don’t believe he’ll get himself free very soon,” he said.  “He’ll be lucky if that knock on the head keeps him unconscious for a long time, because he’ll wake up with a headache, and if he stays as he is he won’t know how uncomfortable he is.”

“Are we going to leave him like that, Harry?”

“We’ve got to, Dick.  But he’ll be all right, I am going to telephone to Colonel Throckmorton and tell him to send here for him, but to do so at night, and so that no one will notice.  He won’t starve or die of thirst.  I can easily manage to describe this place so that whoever the colonel sends will find it.  Come on!”