reek, as Scott had advised, made it
without mishap, scrambled up a steep and rocky path, and saw
confronting him, not far ahead, a small, ruinous-looking cabin shack.
Dismounting before this, he threw his lines, shook himself a little,
and walked up to the cabin door. It was open.

The mild-minded conspirators who had planned the details of the
abduction were agreed that if the effort could be made a success at
all, there was but one way to effect it, and that was to act, in
every step, openly. Any attempt to steal on Sassoon unawares would
be a desperate one; while to walk boldly into his cabin at daybreak
would be to do only what his companions were likely at any time to do,
and was the course least calculated to lead to serious trouble. None
of the three were unaware of the psychological action of that
peculiar instinct of danger possessed by men habitually exposed to
surprise--they knew how easily it may be aroused in a sleeper by the
unusual happening about him, and how cunningly it is allayed by
counterfeiting within his hearing the usual course of normal events.

De Spain, following the chosen policy, called gruffly to the cabin
inmate. There was no answer. All had sounded extremely plausible to de
Spain at the time he listened to Bob Scott's ingenious anticipation of
the probabilities, and he had felt while listening to the subtle
Indian that the job was not a complicated one.

But now, as he hitched his trouser band near to the butt of his
revolver with his right hand, and laid his left on the jamb of
the door with an effort to feel at home, stepped unevenly across
the threshold, and tried to peer into the interior darkness,
Scott's strategy did not, for some reason, commend itself quite
so convincingly to him. There seemed, suddenly, a great many
chances for a slip in the programme. De Spain coughed slightly, his
eyes meantime boring the darkness to the left, where Sassoon's bed
should be. The utmost scrutiny failed to disclose any sign of it
or any sound of breathing from that corner. He took a few steps
toward where the man should be asleep, and perceived beyond a
doubt that there was no bed in the corner at all. He turned
toward the other corner, his hand covering the butt of his gun.
"Hello, Shike!" he called out in a slightly strained tone of
camaraderie, addressing Sassoon by a common nickname. Then he
listened. A trumpeting snore answered. No sound was ever sweeter to
de Spain's ear. The rude noise