CHAPTER XXIII.
VAIN EFFORTS.
Of the five confederates who had been at the hut with Rezonoff, two—Vance and Minowsky—accompanied him in the automobile, while Pepernik, under his orders, returned to the rooming house to serve as a “stalking horse” against the police, and lead them off the trail.
This left Matschka and Simmons to guard the prisoners, each man taking a relief of three hours, with Matschka accepting the first turn at sentry duty.
It was a period of quiet in the hut, broken only by the mutterings and tossings of Simmons as he slept somewhat restlessly, rolled up in a blanket over in the corner.
Matschka, silently alert, sat on a box smoking innumerable cigarettes, but never letting his glance drift from the captives, who shifted about uneasily in the effort to relieve the chafing of the cords at their wrists and ankles, the while they feverishly revolved methods of escape.
One conclusion was very speedily reached by both of them: That it would not be wise to make the attempt under the eye of their present sentinel. He steadfastly declined to be drawn into conversation by them, or to have his attention diverted in any way, and his discernment was almost uncanny. Let one or the other of them feel even the slightest slackening of his bonds, and immediately Matschka was there to tighten up the knots.
They soon decided, therefore, to defer active measures until Simmons took the watch, and in the meantime devote all their energies to devising an effective plan of escape.
Eagerly each sought to recall all the tales of the old Indian fighters which are handed down in the service, with their details of almost miraculous deliverance from similar situations, but none of the expedients used seemed adaptable to their present plight.
Many prisoners, bound hand and foot, have managed even under the watchful eyes of a guard to extricate themselves from their fetters and get away; but it has always been due, Grail gloomily reflected, to some slip-up or oversight on the part of their captors—a pocketknife[{43}] overlooked in the search of the prisoner’s person, a carelessly tied knot, or a convenient sharp stone against which to fray the ropes. With them, however, no such fortuitous circumstance existed so far as Grail could see; and he was satisfied from Cato’s expression that his companion was equally baffled by their plight.
They were simply tied up hard and fast, and in such thorough and scientific fashion that to slip or unloose their fastenings with any one watching them was practically an impossibility. Nevertheless, Grail did not despair. There must be some way out of the dilemma, he believed, and industriously he set himself to find it.