DEMANDS OF THE RASCALS.

It was not until some time after breakfast the following morning that Neka’s absence was discovered.

“He’s sleeping pretty long,” said Bindley to Longfellow Wadsworth. “He must be more than tired out.”

“Well, he deserves a good sleep,” replied the elocutionist and ballad singer, for Wadsworth had now added several songs to his turn. “He made the hit of the performance beyond all question.”

“That’s true. Just see how the _Herald_, _World_, _Sun_, and the other morning papers puff him up. He’s a star and no mistake.”

Longfellow Wadsworth and Bindley might have been jealous of Neka’s great success in New York, but both loved the boy too well for that. They meant to shake him by the hand and congratulate him again when he came down.

But as the time slipped by and Neka did not put in an appearance, the pair began to grow anxious. Bindley had called a rehearsal at the theatre at ten o’clock, and it was almost that already.

“I’ll call him,” said Longfellow Wadsworth, and went up in the elevator.

In two minutes he came down, pale and excited, and told Bindley the news. Neka’s room was vacant and looked as if he had not occupied it at all during the night.

“What can it mean?” asked Bindley, but all Longfellow Wadsworth could do was to shake his head and say he didn’t know.

“Maybe he meant to meet us at the theatre,” Bindley suggested, after they had made useless inquiries at the hotel office and of the bellboys. “Let us go down and see.”

So they took a car to the theatre and waited around there for another hour. Bindley started the rehearsal with the other performers, but he was too anxious concerning Neka’s welfare to put any heart in the work.

In the meantime, Longfellow Wadsworth tramped about the lobby anxiously, glancing up and down the street and then at his watch, a timepiece his present prosperity had enabled him to get out of pawn. Where could Neka be? He conjured up all sorts of things, but none so dire as the reality.

Presently a special delivery messenger from the post office came in.

“Letter for Longfellow Wadsworth,” he said, laconically, as the elocutionist rushed toward him.

“I am your man,” exclaimed Longfellow Wadsworth. “I have been looking for it.” He glanced at the handwriting. “Pshaw! This is not from Neka.”

He signed for the letter, and the messenger departed. Then he opened the epistle and read it quickly, then more slowly, and his hands trembled violently. “The base villains!” he murmured, tragically, yet with true feeling. “The villains! poor Neka!”

The letter, which had been penned by Hank Maul at Daniel Bambo’s rather mixed-up dictation, ran as follows:

We have Neka in our power, and he can’t get away, no matter how hard he tries. If you want him back quick and all well, you must pony up a thousand dollars. Raise the money any way you please if you ain’t got it in cash, and have it for us either this afternoon at four o’clock or to-morrow afternoon at precisely the same hour. Take the money in good twenty-dollar bills, and have it so it can easily be counted, and at exactly four o’clock take a Sixth avenue elevated train at Fourteenth street station for the last stop in Harlem, and walk up past the Polo Grounds and all will go well. But beware and go alone and have no police or other spies around, or you will never see Neka alive again. This will be a square deal on our account if you do the right thing, and you won’t be harmed and Neka can go back with you. He is now fifteen miles away, but if you come at four o’clock to-day he can get back with you in time for to-night’s show if you hustle things. Yours, THE NEW YORK BLACKTOPS.

Take Notice! No police, or there will be trouble, and you won’t git Neka back!

After perusing the note several times, Longfellow Wadsworth rushed off and showed it to Bindley, who also read it with close interest.

“The rascals!” muttered the stage manager. “Who can they be?”

“I can’t tell you,” returned the elocutionist. “The question is, what ought I to do?”

“I wouldn’t give ’em a penny,” burst out Bindley. “Not but what I want Neka back, but it ain’t right, and, besides, I don’t believe it will do any good.”

“New York must be getting a pretty place to come to if this is the sort of a gang that is allowed to exist,” ejaculated Longfellow Wadsworth, wrathfully.

Not for one moment did either he or Bindley suspect Daniel Bambo or Hank Maul. If they thought of these men at all it was to suppose them still up in the New England States.

The matter was talked over for fully half an hour, and no conclusion was arrived at. Longfellow Wadsworth was for handing the case to a first-class private detective, but Bindley demurred.

“They may make a mess of it,” he said. “Why not meet whoever there is and talk the matter over this afternoon? It won’t do any harm.”

“But we won’t get Neka back, and the show----”

“We’ll have to shut down, that’s all. Neka is worth a dozen stands even as good as this one.”

Again the matter was talked over, and finally Longfellow Wadsworth agreed to go off as directed in the letter. He armed himself, and so did Bindley, who intended to follow on the quiet.

At a quarter to four Longfellow Wadsworth made his way to the Fourteenth street station of the Sixth avenue elevated. In his hip pocket he carried a pistol and inside of his coat a short but heavy club. He also had a pocketbook stuffed with paper to resemble bank notes.

As is usual the elevated station was crowded, and try his best, the elocutionist could not pick out anyone who might be there to watch him.

Somewhat nervously he waited until his watch pointed to the hour of four. At that moment a train bound for Harlem came along, and he boarded it. Bindley also got on, but the two kept apart, and in addition the stage manager was disguised by a heavy, false beard.

To Longfellow Wadsworth the train appeared to move from one station to the next at a snail’s pace, and he fancied the terminus of the line would never be reached.

But at last the brakeman cried out “Last stop!” and the train rolled into the station at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street, and the passengers who remained got off. They included about two dozen men, a dozen women, and several boys and girls.

Descending the long stairs to the street, Longfellow Wadsworth turned and walked up past the Polo Grounds. He walked slowly, but no one appeared to follow him save an old woman and Bindley, the latter a good half block behind.

“This looks like a sell,” thought the elocutionist. “There is no one here nor was there any one on that train. Either they got afraid or perhaps Neka has escaped them. Pray Heaven the latter proves true.”

But scarcely had the thought flashed over Wadsworth’s mind than the old woman hobbled up and touched him on the arm. She was heavily veiled and spoke in a hoarse and unnatural tone.

“Excuse me, sir, but are you Longfellow Wadsworth?” she asked, with a suspicious glance around.

“I am, madam,” he returned, much astonished.

“Did you bring the money that the gents wants?” she went on.

“Ah, you are the--ah--the one to meet me,” replied Longfellow Wadsworth, ignoring the reference to the money. “Where is Neka?”

“I don’t know what yer talkin’ about, sir,” growled the old woman. “I was told to bring you alone, if you said you had the money, that’s all.”

“Then lead the way, good woman. For I am in a hurry to get back with Neka.”

At this reply the old woman chuckled to herself. The chuckle sounded more natural than her voice, and on the moment the elocutionist grew suspicious.

Then the truth burst upon him. It was no woman at all, this veiled figure, but a man! Moreover, he had heard that voice before. It was the voice of Daniel Bambo!

He was greatly tempted to grab the impostor by the throat and cry for help. But he thought of Neka and of what he might be suffering at the hands of others and kept quiet. Perhaps Bambo might be merely the tool of a gang. Yet he managed to look back and was greatly comforted to see Bindley was following. He slyly dropped a card, as had been previously agreed upon, which meant that he was on the right track and Bindley must keep on guard. This card the stage manager picked up only a few minutes later.

“Where are you going to take me?” he asked, carelessly.

“You’ll see when you’re there,” was the hoarse reply. “Have your money ready for the gents--that’s what they said I must tell you.”

“Are you in with the crowd?”

“I’m in with nobody. I’m a lone an’ honest widder.”

“So I would imagine,” was Longfellow Wadsworth’s rather sarcastic reply.

The pair passed down a side street. Here, at a corner, a coach was in waiting with Dennis Groin on the box.

“You’ll git in the coach,” said Bambo, briefly. “That man has directions as to where he is to take his fare.”

“But where are you going?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Longfellow Wadsworth hesitated. He did not know that Bambo intended to ride on the box with Groin, to keep a lookout for possible detectives, or policemen. He wondered how Bindley would be able to follow if he entered the carriage.

At that instant an empty coach dashed by, going toward the stage manager. Without further hesitation, the elocutionist entered Dennis Groin’s turnout, feeling satisfied Bindley would know enough to hire the empty coach in which to follow wheels on wheels.

No sooner had Longfellow Wadsworth entered the dilapidated coach than Bambo sprang up beside Groin, and away they went at the top of the sorry-looking nag’s speed.

Through the back window of the coach Longfellow Wadsworth saw Bindley stop the other turnout and parley with the driver. Then they turned a bend, and he could see no more, but he felt certain the stage manager would continue on the trail.

Half an hour passed, and Longfellow Wadsworth wondered when the strange adventure would come to an end, when of a sudden the coach gave a lurch and went down into a deep rut. A crash followed, and off came one of the front wheels, and both Groin and Bambo were pitched out into the snow and dirt.

As they went down Bambo’s veil came off, and so did his bonnet, revealing his repulsive face fully to Longfellow Wadsworth, who rolled out of the open coach door. Groin was hurt in the leg, and on attempting to rise fell back with a grunt of pain.

“Hang the luck!” growled Daniel Bambo.

He leaped up and faced the elocutionist. But before he could make another move Longfellow Wadsworth had his pistol out.

“This game has gone far enough, Daniel Bambo,” he said, sternly. “Let us come to a settlement. Where is Neka?”