, Russ Bunker. Don't you tell me. I don't believe he is, anyway. Who's
mur--murderin' him?"

"I don't know who's doing it," admitted Russ, shaking as much as Laddie
was.

"How do you know it's--it's being done?" repeated Laddie, his doubt
growing as he became more fully awake.

"He says so. He says so himself. And if he says he's being murdered, he
ought to know--Oh!"

Again the doleful sound reached their ears, this time Laddie hearing as
well as Russ the moaning of a voice which uttered a muffled cry of
"Mur-r-rder!"

"There! What did I tell you?" gasped Russ. "I'm--I'm going to tell
daddy."

"Wait for me! Wait, Russ Bunker! I'm going with you," Laddie cried. "I
don't want to stay here and be mur--murdered, too!"

That was an awful word, anyway. Russ crept over the edge of the berth at
the foot and dropped down behind the curtain. Laddie was right behind
him, and in fact came down first upon Russ's shoulders and then slipped
to the floor of the car.

Before they could get inside daddy's curtain--a place which spelled
safety to their disturbed imaginations--they heard the moaning voice
again groan:

"Mur-r-rder!"

It was an awful choking cry--just like a hen squawked when Jerry Simms
grabbed it by the neck and had his hand on the hen's windpipe!

"He's mur--murderin' him all right," chattered Laddie, tugging at Russ's
pajama jacket. "Are--are you going to stop it, Russ?"

Russ had no idea of going himself to the rescue of the victim; he had
only thought of waking daddy. But now he put his head outside the
curtain and looked into the narrow aisle of the sleeping car. The first
thing he saw was the colored porter, his cap on awry, his eyes rolling
so that their whites were very prominent, stalking up the aisle in a
crouching attitude with the little stool he sometimes sat on in the
vestibule gripped by one leg as a weapon.

"It's the porter!" whispered Russ huskily.

"Is--is he being mur--murdered?" stuttered Laddie.

"He--he looks more as though he was going to do the mur-murdering,"
confessed Russ.

Laddie would not look; but Russ could not take his eyes off the
approaching porter. The colored man crept nearer, nearer--and then
suddenly he snatched away the curtain almost directly across the aisle
from where the two little Bunkers stood.

There was nobody in that lower berth but the fat man before mentioned!
He lay on his back with his knees up, his face very red, his eyes
tightly closed. Again