At the Time Appointed

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.