sed, and then opened a door
leading to a back bedroom. The apartment had two windows, but the blinds
were closed, what little light there was coming in through the
turned-down slats.

"I have to shut off a good deal of light on account of my eyes,"
explained the doctor, as he saw Dave glance at the blinds. "My eyes are
very weak, and I am told that the sunlight is very bad for them."

"I am sorry to hear that," answered Dave.

He hardly knew what to say or how to act. His reception had not been
what he had anticipated, and he could not imagine what was coming next.

"Here are some of the documents I wish you to look over first--and then
we'll talk business," said Hooker Montgomery, pointing to a mass of
legal-looking papers lying on the bed. "You can take them to the window
if you wish," and he sank down in a rocking-chair, as if tired out, and
placed both hands over his eyes.

Curious to know what the documents might contain of importance to him,
Dave took some of them up and stepped close to one of the windows. The
writing was poor, and it was hard to make out what had been written.

His face was bent closely over one of the pages when of a sudden he felt
some unusual movement behind him. He started to turn, but before he
could do so, a big bag was thrown over his head and arms, and tied
around his waist. At the same instant he was tackled around the legs,
and his ankles were tied together.

Of course he struggled, and for several minutes his would-be captors had
all they could do to hold him. But he had been taken so completely off
his guard that resistance proved useless. Soon a rope was passed around
the bag and over his arms, and further struggling was out of the
question.

"Who are you?" he demanded, in a muffled tone, for inside of the bag it
was all he could do to breathe. The covering was so heavy he could not
see a thing.

No answer was vouchsafed to his question. He was backed up against the
bed, and made to sit down, and then he heard his captors leave the room,
locking the door after them.

Dave was both chagrined and angry--chagrined to think that he had been
taken in so easily, and angry to think that he was a prisoner and at
his captors' mercy.

"This must be the work of Merwell and Jasniff," he thought. "They simply
hired the doctor to get me here. There is nothing in the story of
documents, letters, and photographs. What a fool I was to walk into the
trap!"

And then he wondered when h