After a time the knot gave, and Muggs managed to get his hands free. He removed the gag and started working at the cords about his ankles.
"Boss! Boss!" he called.
There came no answer from Verbeck's room. Muggs managed to get off the last rope, and sprang from the bed. Immediately he reeled and fell back again.
"I'm—sick!" Muggs gasped weakly. "That was—some dope! I wonder what it——"
And then it came to him.
"I know that feelin' in my head and that taste in my mouth!" he told himself. "Vapor gun! I've had enough doses of it before to know! The—the Black Star——"
But the Black Star was safe in a cell in the county jail, and due to be taken to the penitentiary in a few hours, Muggs tried to tell himself. However, Muggs did not have a lot of faith in jails, having escaped from them twice himself before Roger Verbeck saved his life and made a man of him.
Once more he started to get up from the bed, this time slowly and cautiously. He did not experience the nausea now, and though he still felt weak, yet he managed to stagger across the room toward the door.
He went into Verbeck's bedchamber and snapped on the lights. Verbeck was not there. The room was in confusion. Verbeck's clothes, that Muggs had put out for use in the morning, were gone, and his pajamas were on the floor in a corner.
Muggs hurried to the bed. It was there, pasted on the headpiece—a tiny black star!