Part 40 (2/2)

”Dat settles it,” said Macklin. ”Come on back.”

And Hal was left to his fate.

CHAPTER XIX.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

Hal came to himself with a s.h.i.+ver. Where was he, and what had happened?

For a moment he could not collect his scattered senses. Then the cold water in the vat reached his mouth and nose, and he gave a gulp.

He put out his hands. They were tight in the sack. With a struggle he stood up. The water in the vat reached his waist, and it was icy cold.

Presently the string of the sack gave way, and he pulled the article off of him. Then he realized what had happened up in the tenement, and felt the blood trickling over his forehead.

”They have put me here thinking I was dead,” he thought. ”I wonder what sort of a place this is?”

He stepped around in the water, and applied some of it to his head. This stopped the flow of blood, and appeared to clear his brain.

It was semi-dark in the vat, but presently his eyes grew accustomed to this, and he saw where he was.

He gave a s.h.i.+ver. The top of the vat was fully three feet above his reach. What if he could not get out? He would soon perish from the extreme cold.

The vat was some ten or twelve feet in diameter, and Hal walked around the bottom in hopes of finding some spot higher than that upon which he was standing.

In this he was disappointed. The bottom of the vat was perfectly level.

By the time he had discovered this fact, he was s.h.i.+vering so he could hardly stand upright.

He jumped up several times in hopes of getting out by that means. But though his hands once touched the upper edge of the vat, he could gain no hold, and immediately slipped back again.

”Help! help!” he cried.

Then he listened. There was no reply. Macklin and Ferris had returned to the tenement.

”I'm all alone,” he muttered to himself. ”I will die here, and no one will ever know what became of me.”

This thought filled Hal with despair, and he again cried out, louder than before.

The cry went echoing through the vast and gloomy building, but there was no response.

”This will never do,” thought the youth. ”Must I die like a rat in a trap?”

The very thought was maddening, and again he essayed to reach the top of the vat.

It was utterly useless.

<script>