“I heard the window sash rattle, then a strong perfume—­something like opium or hasheesh—­was forced into the room, then the fellow on the outside began to work his hypnotic spell.”

“You say it right!” exclaimed Tommy.

“It’s just as simple as anything you ever read in a daily newspaper,” declared Will.  “This Little Brass God we are tracing up belongs either in a Hindu temple in India, or the Hindus think it belongs there.  At any rate, some dusky old hypnotizer has been sent after it!”

“You’d better get a new dream book!” Sandy broke in.  “Whoever came to the window tonight, came there to find out what we were doing in this cabin!  That’s all there is to that!”

“Whoever came to the window tonight,” Will repeated, “came there for the purpose of hypnotizing one of us boys into telling where the Little Brass God is hidden!”

“Then he must be about fourteen miles off his trolley,” laughed Sandy.  “We don’t know where the Little Brass God is hidden.”

“He threw an Oriental perfume or narcotic of some, kind into the room and let out his persuasive language,” Will went on.  “If you don’t believe he hypnotized Thede, just ask him what he heard just before he got out of bed.”

“I heard some one calling to me,” Thede answered.

“What did he say?”

“He told me to come to him.”

“And you was obeying that command when you started toward the window?”

“I guess that’s right,” answered the boy, “but it’s all so hazy that I don’t know much about it.”

“And then I fired at the window and broke the spell and also the pane of glass!” explained Will.  “If he comes back here again, I’ll shoot from the outside!  We can’t be kept awake nights by any East Indian magic.”

“East Indian granny!” declared Sandy.

“You read about such occurrences in the newspapers every day!” declared Will.  “We see people hypnotized and forced to obey the commands of others, not only in the private parlor but on the open stage.  Sometimes, too, the hypnotic influence is assisted by strange Oriental perfume.  There’s nothing extraordinary about it at all!  In fact, there is only one word that describes it, and that is the word uncanny.”

“Fix it anyway you want it!” grinned Tommy.  “There’s a broken window, and there’s blood on the snow, and we found Thede lying on the floor when we sprang out of bed.  If that doesn’t make a good case of circumstantial evidence, I don’t know what does!”

“This Little Brass God is getting on my nerves!” declared Sandy after a short pause.  “We’ve been up against smugglers on Lake Superior; up against rattlers and wreckers in the Florida Everglades, and up against train robbers on the Great Divide, but this ghost business gets my goat!”

“Perhaps you’d like to go back to Chicago empty-handed?” asked Tommy.