From where he crouched Bob had a good view of the front of the cabin when he pushed aside a small bush. For nearly an hour he watched without seeing a soul. Then suddenly the door of the cabin was opened and Pierre Harbaugh stepped out followed by two other men. One of them was the man who had been with Pierre, when he had caught him, but the other he had never seen. Of this he was certain for the man once seen would never have been forgotten, for he was a veritable giant. Full six feet and six inches he stood and he must have weighed close to three hundred pounds Bob told himself, and he could see that there was no pound of surplus flesh on his frame.
“They sure grow ’em big up here,” he thought as he watched the man, fascinated by the gracefulness of his movements. “That man could throw a bull I’ll bet and not exert himself much at that. No wonder they got Jack away without a struggle. He would be but a baby in the hands of that fellow.”
For some time the three men stood near the cabin door. Bob could see that they were earnestly discussing something but, although he was able to catch a word now and then, he was too far away to get the drift of their conversation. Finally they went back into the cabin and closed the door.
“He’s an ugly looking brute though,” Bob muttered, and his heart sank as he thought of his brother in the power of such a man.
Jack was dreaming. He thought that he was on his father’s farm, just outside the village, helping the farm hands with the haying. He was on the top of a big load of hay when suddenly the rack tilted and went over burying him beneath the load. He struggled to throw aside the hay so that he could breathe but the act became more and more difficult. Finally his struggles woke him and he was conscious of a sweet sickish odor. For a moment he struggled to rise but was unable to move. Thinking that he must still be in the grip of the nightmare he ceased struggling.
“I guess he’s gone,” he heard a voice say and it seemed that it came from a long distance. Then oblivion.
When Jack’s senses returned the first thing he was conscious of was a dull throbbing pain in the back of his head. He was lying at full length on the ground. He tried to sit up but the pain increased to such an extent that he was glad to lie down again. It was so dark that he was unable to see even a few feet but as he lay and tried to reason out what had happened the sound of voices but a few feet distant came to him.
“You no tink you geeve heem too much, hey?” he heard.
“Non, heem be all right, ver’ queek,” another voice answered.
“We wait till heem can walk?” the first voice asked.