t was something more than stale air
that Tom smelled.

A folded cloth lay on the floor beside the couch. The young fellow saw
at once that it had been originally placed over the giant's face, but
had slid off. And lucky for Koku that it had been dislodged!

"Chloroform!" muttered Tom. "He's drugged. It is no wonder he did not
hear the burglar alarm."

In any event, the incident made one deep impression on Tom's mind. The
spies who he believed were working for the Hendrickton & Western
Railroad and its owner, Montagne Lewis, were desperate men. Tom could
not believe that the fellow with the big feet was alone in Shopton and
was unaided in his attempts to find out what Tom was doing.

This attempt to burglarize the house betrayed the caliber of the enemy.
In chloroforming Koku he had taken the risk of murdering the giant.
Only the fact that the pad of saturated cloth had fallen off Koku's
face had, perhaps, saved the man from suffocation.

Tom did not tell the giant when he aroused what the matter with him
was. Koku was ill enough! He was wrenched by interior spasms that
seemed almost to tear his huge body to pieces.

"What done got into dat big lump o' bone an' grizzle?" demanded
Eradicate. "He looks like, he swallowed a volcano, and it just got to
wo'kin' right. My lawsy!"

"He is a sick man, all right," admitted Tom. "Looks like he wouldn't
try to stab me to deaf wid no spear no mo'," went on Rad, inclined to
approve of Koku's sufferings.

"If he died you'd be mighty sorry, old man," declared Tom, sternly.

"Sho' would. Be a mighty hard job to bury him," was the callous
response.

Just the same, the crotchety old colored man began to hop around in
lively fashion with hot water, and later with coffee and other
stimulants; and he nursed Koku all day as though he were a big baby.

Koku, who had never been ill before in his life, was inclined to lay
the trouble to an evil genius of some kind. Perhaps, in spite of his
half-civilized state, he was still a devil-worshiper. At any rate, he
had a vital respect for the forces of evil.

Naturally he considered this unknown and unexpected misery he suffered
the result of malignant influences of some kind. Tom did not want him
to suspect that the man with the big feet had any possible part in the
mystery. Had Koku suspected this, and had he got his hands on the spy,
the latter could never have been successfully used in that sort of work
again. In all probability he