He kept thinking of everything that had happened at Haskell Crossing, and of the desperate minutes in which, while he knew the fate that was in store for the onrushing train, he had been powerless to prevent the catastrophe that threatened. And then suddenly, while he was half asleep and half awake, he remembered something that had escaped him before, something he had seen and that had been recorded in his brain, although it was only now that the picture stood out vividly and with meaning.
There had been three men in the room with Hank Hudson and Tom Binns while he had waited at the window and spied upon them. And three men had returned, after he had seized the chance to give the warning that had saved the train. But they were not the same three. He remembered now, with a sudden flash of clear understanding that one of the three had been a stranger—that of the three who were caught, one was a man he had not seen before.
He started up in his blanket.
"Then there were four of them!" he cried, half aloud. "And one of them is free, and able to plan new deviltries. I wish they'd caught them all!"
But even that thought, disturbing as it was, did not keep him awake much longer. As he lay there, his tired body resting with the very act of lying down, he grew gradually more drowsy, and he drifted off asleep at last with the humming of a power boat on the lake beating against his ears.
He slept a long time. The camp was quiet. In the distance an owl hooted now and then, and until long after midnight the sounds of activity persisted on the lake. The moon had risen early, and was setting soon after midnight, so that it was very dark under the trees, though out on the lake, once the shadow of the trees around the shore was passed, the stars gave abundant light. And, because he was so tired, and trusted so entirely to the sentries, Jack had no thought of watchfulness when he fell asleep, and slept more heavily than was usual with him when he was in camp with the Scouts.
The sentries were posted on all sides of the camp, as a rule, but no one had foreseen the need of any watch on the side of the camp nearest the lake. Yet it was from that spot that danger came, in the end.
It was two o'clock when a launch, with silenced engine, glided up to the beach near the camp, as silently as a rowboat might have done, and grated softly on the shelving beach. One man, slight and delicate in appearance, was at her wheel, and from the bow, as she touched bottom, another stepped out into the water and made his way cautiously, and in roundabout fashion, toward the sleepers. He was big, strong, and massive. His face was concealed, or nearly concealed, by a black mask that hid his eyes and his nose and he walked with the stealthy footsteps of one long used to avoiding detection as he moved about his business. He seemed to know what he was doing, and where to go, and one might have guessed that he had been spying on the camp, to learn the way in which the sleepers were disposed. He avoided the lean-tos near the fire, and, sneaking back and around through the woods, he approached Jack Danby's lean-to from behind.
For a moment, silent and ominous in the darkness, he stood there, studying the situation, as it seemed, and making up his mind just how to accomplish his purpose. Then, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he took the cork from a small bottle and poured its contents on the handkerchief. At once a strong, sickly, sweetish smell arose, unhealthy, and unpleasant, in contrast to the strong, fresh smells of the sleeping woods. Holding this handkerchief in his hand, the newcomer, a savage grin of ugly satisfaction on his lips, approached Jack Danby, and, with a motion so swift as to be hardly visible, flung his hand, with the handkerchief flat on his palm, over Jack Danby's face.
Jack awoke at once and struggled for a second. But he could not cry out, and in a moment the handkerchief, soaked with chloroform, had done its work, and he lay unconscious.