Jack was entirely helpless, drugged as he was, and, with a triumphant leer, the man who had drugged him picked him up, and, moving as cautiously as ever, carried him to the motor boat. But he had underestimated the watchfulness of the Scout sentries. At the sudden, sharp explosions of the engine as it was started, and the launch backed off the beach, there was a sudden cry from one of the watchers, and in a moment his shrill whistle aroused the camp, so that a dozen Scouts, turning out hastily, saw the motor boat back out and turn, as if to race for the outlet at the foot of the lake, nearly ten miles away.
For a moment all was confusion in the camp. Awakened suddenly from a sound sleep, the Scouts could not at first tell what had happened.
The sentry who gave the alarm had seen only the one thing—the motor boat backing out from the beach.
"It's nothing," said Bob Hart, sleepily. "Someone mistook this for their own landing, and, when they found out their mistake, backed out and went for their own cottage."
But Dick Crawford thought suddenly of Jack Danby.
"Jack!" he shouted. "Jack Danby!"
There was no answer, and a swift rush to his lean-to proved that it was empty. Durland and Dick Crawford ran there together, and Durland recognized the smell of the chloroform at once.
"There's been foul play here!" he cried, furiously. "Someone has drugged Jack and carried him away."
He called for Crawford then, but the Assistant Scout-Master was already gone to the rescue.
"Get to the outlet as soon as you can!" he shouted, and they heard him breaking through the woods to the road that was near by. "I'm going there on my wheel!"