He still carried the hand-lamp
and it lit his way into the garage door and up the narrow
stairway. He shot the round beam of the lamp into Koku's room.
He had been obliged to have an iron bedstead made to order for
the giant. It stood against one wall of the room. The buzzer was
snarling like a huge bumblebee above the head of the couch.
Below it sprawled the giant, eyes tightly closed and mouth
slightly ajar. From the lips of Koku were emitted sounds worthy
of Rad Sampson in his deepest slumbers!
"Asleep?" gasped Tom, stepping cat-like into the room.
And then he was suddenly aware of a sickish, heavy odor in the
chamber. The window had been closed. But it 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.
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