Chapter VII: Jack Danby's Peril

Tom Binns was in no condition to go to the Scout camp opposite Beaver Dam, and he was taken back to the city by one of the railway detectives. Jack Danby was going home with him, but Tom wouldn't hear of it.

"They'll be wondering why we didn't turn up after our hike, and maybe they'll think there's something wrong with us," he said. "You go on to the camp, Jack, and explain. I'll be all right, sure, tomorrow."

So Jack, reluctantly enough, for he felt, in a way, that he was deserting his plucky little comrade, got off the train at Beaver Dam, and rowed across the lake to the twinkling fire that showed where the rest of the Scouts were gathered.

He was welcomed with a shout.

"But where's Tom Binns?" cried Pete Stubbs finally, when they realized, suddenly, that the little fellow wasn't with them.

Then Jack explained. He told of the accident that had turned out, in the end, to be so fortunate a happening, since, had it not been for Tom's twisted ankle, they would never have reached the station, and the train might have been wrecked, with a terrible loss of life.

"So we couldn't finish our hike tonight, of course," said Jack. "We'll do it the next time, though. And a week or so doesn't make much difference."

A tall, bearded man, with a slouch hat, was sitting with Scout-Master Durland at the fire, and at Jack's last words he turned to the Scout-Master with a smile.

"I think you can afford to waive the strict letter of the rule this time, Durland," he said. "These boys of yours have certainly proved their right to be regarded as First Class Scouts. I don't know that there's any special badge of merit or honor, except the one for lifesaving, that they are entitled to, but I shall make it my business to see that the Scout council takes some action on the heroism of Scout Danby."

Then Jack learned that the stranger was a member of the National Scout Council, one of the highest officers of the organization, and a man famous all over the world as a pioneer and a worker for the things that the Boy Scouts stand for.

"You think that Scout Danby is entitled to his badge, then?" said Durland, unsmiling, and, at the other's quick nod, he called Jack up to the center of the group around the fire, and pinned the full Scout badge, of which Jack had thus far been wearing only the bar, to his breast.

"You have earned this badge by close attention to duty, and by being always prepared," said the Scout-Master, while the Scouts of the three Patrols cheered the reward. "We are all proud of you, Danby, and we know that you will never do anything to bring discredit upon your badge, nor do anything that is not strictly in accordance with the Scout oath that you took when you were first enrolled as a Tenderfoot Scout."

There was another burst of cheering at that, and all of the Scouts who were present crowded up to shake hands with Jack and congratulate him. Dick Crawford was one of the first, and gripped Jack's hand heartily.

"I guess you'll get a big reward out of the railroad," he said. "That's a splendid thing for you, Jack. You can use it to go to college, if you want to. They ought to be generous."

"The detective did say something about a reward, Dick, but I'd forgotten all about it for the moment. It will be divided up among Tom Binns, Hudson and myself, of course, if there is one. But I wasn't thinking about that."

"I know you weren't, Jack, but that's no reason why you shouldn't have it. It wouldn't be right to do a fine thing just because there was a reward, but that's no reason why you shouldn't take it. You helped to capture those fellows, and the chances are that they are well-known thieves, who are wanted for more than one crime."

"The detective recognized them, I think, Dick. He called them by name, and seemed to know all about them. I suppose men who would dare to try to do a thing like that must be old stagers. No man who was committing his first crime would try anything so fiendish as wrecking a train and taking the chance of killing a lot of innocent people, do you think?"

"I should say not! And there wasn't any chance about it, either. If the train had been wrecked, going at sixty miles an hour or so, as it would have been, if it was late, and trying to make up lost time, there couldn't have been any result but a terrible wreck."

"I wonder if there were only three of them?" said Jack, thoughtfully. "I've been thinking since that there may have been others in the gang that weren't caught. There must have been someone to set the blockade for the train, and I don't believe those fellows we caught had time to do everything. They had to put Hudson out of the way, you see, and keep him from using the telegraph to give warning. I've got an idea there was at least one other man in it, and maybe more than that, who didn't show up in the station at all."

"Well, if that's so, you'd better look out for yourself, Jack, in case they try to get even with you for spoiling their little game. They'd be apt to try to take that out of you."

"Perhaps they won't know I had anything to do with it. And, anyhow, I'm not sure there was anyone else mixed up in it. That's only a guess anyhow."

"I'd be careful, just the same. Don't go around alone at night--though you'll be safe enough in the city, I guess, unless some of those people that were mixed up in that kidnapping case get after you."

"They haven't anything more against me, or any more reason to be sore at me, than at anyone else that was concerned in the whole job, anyhow. But I'll keep my eyes open. I'll be glad to turn in pretty soon. I'm pretty tired."

"I should think you would be. I am myself, and I haven't done as much as you."

Soon after that sentries were posted, and the Scouts, wrapped in their blankets, were all asleep in their lean-tos. Jack's sleeping partner, Tom Binns, was not there, so he slept alone, on the edge of the camp, and some distance from the campfire.

Tired as he was, he did not get to sleep at once. Out on the lake puffing motor boats, running back and forth from the big summer hotel at the head of the lake to the cottages that were clustered near the dam, made the night noisy. Those people were late risers and they went to bed late as well. There was a dance at the hotel, and it was well attended. So the sharp beat of the engines of the little boats disturbed those who were trying to sleep. Jack was so tired, too, that it was hard for him to get to sleep.

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.

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!"

Dick had ridden to the camp on his motorcycle, and now they heard the sharp clatter of its engine as he started it.

"If they're making for the outlet, he'll head them off," said Durland. "Hart, take your Patrol and go up to the dam there, in case they went that way. The rest of you follow me. We'll take Crawford's route, and see if we can't get there in time to help him. I'm afraid Danby is in the gravest sort of danger."

They followed him with a shout, half dressed as most of them were. Jack Danby didn't lack friends, at least, even if he did have powerful and determined enemies.