For a few seconds Darrell tried vainly to recall what had awakened him.
Low, confused sounds occasionally reached his ears, but they seemed part
of his own troubled dreams. The heat was intolerable; he raised himself
to the open window that he might get a breath of cooler air; his head
whirled, but the half-sitting posture seemed to clear his brain, and he
recalled his surroundings. At once he became conscious that the train
was not in motion, yet no sound of trainmen's voices came through the
open window; all was dead silence, and the vague, haunting sense of
impending danger quickened.
Suddenly he heard a muttered oath in one of the sections, followed by an
order, low, but peremptory,-"No noise! Hand over, and be quick about it!"
Instantly Darrell comprehended the situation. Peering cautiously between
the curtains, he saw, at the forward end of the sleeper, a masked man
with a revolver in each hand, while the mirror behind him revealed
another figure at the rear, masked and armed in like manner. He heard
another order; the man was doing his work swiftly. He thought at once of
young Whitcomb, but no sound came from the opposite section, and he sank
quietly back upon his pillow.
A moment later the curtains were quickly thrust aside, the muzzle of a
revolver confronted Darrell, and the same low voice demanded,-"Hand out your valuables!"
A man of medium height, wearing a mask and full beard, stood over him.
Darrell quietly handed over his watch and purse, noting as he did so the
man's hands, white, well formed, well kept. He half expected a further
demand, as the purse contained only a few small bills and some change,
the bulk of his money being secreted about the mattress, as was his
habit; but the man turned with peculiar abruptness to the opposite
section, as one who had a definite object in view and was in haste to
accomplish it. Darrell, his faculties alert, observed that the section
in front of Whitcomb's was empty; he recalled the actions of its
occupant on the preceding afternoon, his business later at the telegraph
office, and the whole scheme flashed vividly before his mind. The man
had been a spy sent out by the band now holding the train, and
Whitcomb's money was without doubt the particular object of the hold-up.
Whitcomb was asleep at the farther side of his berth. Leaning slightly
towards him, the man shook him, and his first words confirmed Darrell's
intuitions,-"Hand over that money, young man, and no fuss about it, either!"
Whitcomb, instantly awake, gazed at the masked face without a word or
movement. Darrell, powerless to aid his friend, watched intently,
dreading some rash act on his part to which his impetuous nature might
prompt him.