XXIVIn the gray of the morning Billy came to himself and stared around in the stuffy grimness everywhere. The gag was still in his mouth. He put up his hand involuntarily and pulled it out, and then remembered that his hands had been tied. Then he must have succeeded in breaking the cord! The other hand was still encumbered and his feet were tied together, but it happened that the well hand was the freed one, and so after a hard struggle he succeeded in getting out of the tangle of knots and upon his feet. He worked cautiously because he wasn't sure how much of what he remembered was dream and how much was reality. The two men might be in the house yet, very likely were, asleep somewhere. He must steal down and get away before they awoke.
There was something warm and sticky on the floor a
