indicating that there was anybody besides himself in the abandoned
mine. Then suddenly, rounding a sharp point he came upon the advance
party of searchers approaching him.

"What did you find?" the mine owner inquired before any surprise
greetings could be exchanged. "There's another outlet to this place
somewhere, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is," was the reply of the officer in charge. "This gallery
runs on for another hundred yards, piercing Holly Hill right through
the center. You know the bluff and the rocky slope behind the old
mill. Well, it seems that this mine was cut right through at that
point, but there was a cave-in that filled up that opening. These
rascals that kidnapped the girls evidently were associated with the
people that rented the Buchholz place and cut the passage through. The
girls have been here all right, but they're gone. They've been taken
out of this end of the mine and spirited away in some manner. This
means that the scoundrels have a larger and more effective
organization than we have ever suspected. Such a case of wholesale
kidnapping was never heard of before."

"How can you tell they passed through here?" Mr. Stanlock asked.

"By this principally," the lieutenant answered, holding up a woman's
handkerchief that he had picked up; "and by the fact that there is a
trail in the snow from the opening of the mine to the alley behind the
old mill."

Mr. Stanlock's face shone deathly pale in the glare of the flash
lights. The new element of suspense had brought him again to the