Satisfied that Grandall would not leave the clubhouse before morning, confident of his own ability to awaken at the slightest sound of footsteps near, and resolving to be astir before daybreak, anyway, if he were not disturbed earlier, which he regarded as quite improbable, the scowling wretch allowed his eyes to close.
Even in sleep Murky's face bore an expression little short of fiendish. He was lying quite under the thick foliage of the bushes. They screened him from view and from the breeze that had sprung up out of the west. But also they screened from his eyes the glow that now lit up the heavens, in the distance, for miles around.
It was the smoke, strong in his nostrils, that at last startled the fellow into sudden wakefulness. He had been too long a woodsman, had had too thorough a knowledge of the great forests in his earlier, better days, not to know instantly what it meant. He sprang up and looked about. The course of the wind was such, he reasoned, that the fire would not reach this particular vicinity. But what if it should? Why, so much the better, he reflected. The clubhouse would burn. If Grandall, dead or unconscious, burned with it–Murky's smile was hideous.
For some time he watched the progress of the fire, yet in the distance. But presently he became aware that the daylight was near. It was time for him to act.
Stealthily Murky crept to the broken window at the west side of the clubhouse and entered. He knew the first floor doors were locked, but he did not know that Grandall had secured his bedroom door. This he discovered in due time. Just outside the room he listened. Sounds of heavy breathing assured him his victim slept.
It took a good while for Murky's heavy knife to cut in a panel of the pine door a hole large enough to permit him to reach in and turn the key; for he worked very slowly, very quietly. The daylight was coming in at the window of the narrow hallway when his task was done–the daylight, the dull glare of the advancing flames and the sound of their roar and fury.
The door creaked slightly as ever so slowly its hinges were moved, but in another second Murky stood inside.
The man on the bed awoke–leaped to his feet–saw–recognized–gave forth a yell the like of which even the wildest places have seldom heard.
Instantly Grandall knew his danger. Seizing the leather case, for whose stolen contents he had risked so much, he threw open the balcony window. In another moment he would have leaped to the ground below but Murky caught him and they grappled.
It was in the midst of this first fierce struggle that the two were seen by those on the raft. Murky's greater strength was fast overpowering the other's soft muscles. Grandall breathed in choking gasps.