sprang up just in time to
see a lithe figure hurtling toward him, the figure of a tall, slender man
with an Oriental cast of countenance.

Glad that there was only one, Ned braced himself for the attack, which,
however, did not come. When within a yard of its object, the lithe figure
turned, staggered forward, uttered a low cry of anger and surprise, and
lay swathed in a cluster of vines which had tripped and now held him to
the ground.

CHAPTER XVIII.

JIMMIE RELEASES A PRISONER.

Realizing that the man who had attacked him, or attempted to, must not
escape or be permitted to utter a cry of warning, Ned sprang forward and
caught him by the throat. The fallen man squirmed about in the thicket for
a moment and then feebly motioned for Ned to remove the pressure from his
neck.

Then the patrol leader saw that the fellow had been lassoed, caught about
the neck by a running noose in a slender rope. This accounted for his
antics when first observed by the boy. Puzzled beyond measure, Ned
loosened the noose so the captive would not die from lack of air.

The man sat up in the tangle of bushes, pressing his hands to his neck and
rocking to and fro with pain. It was plain that the rope which had caught
him had been drawn by a merciless hand. But whose hand was it? Ned was
greatly interested in that question.

"I have released the rope so as to give you a little longer lease of
life," Ned said to the prisoner, "but if you try to call out for help, or
to escape, you'll be killed. Do you understand?"

Ned shifted the noose to the man's wrists, which were fastened behind his
back, and relieved him of a revolver and a wicked-looking knife. Then he
asked:

"Were you watching me?"

"Yes," was the short reply, in good English.

"You knew that I was in the house?"

"Yes. I saw you go in."

"Do the others know that I was in there?" asked Ned, then, anxiously.

If the others knew, then all his plans must be revised.

"No," came the reply. "I had had no opportunity of telling them."

"You were placed on guard here by the man called Gostel?"

"Yes."

"Well, who was it that pulled you down? There is something strange about
that."

"I saw no one," replied the other, feeling of his throat again.

"Were others watching here with you?"

The prisoner shook his head.

"Then who did it?" demanded Ned. "That rope never dropped down from the
clouds and brought you up so cleverly. Why, man, you would have had a
k