In the few seconds during which he tried to fight off the effect of the deadly, nauseating fumes, he half realized that he actually was being drugged by one of the most prominent men in the United States--one who might have been supposed absolutely incapable of such a crime--or of any crime, for that matter. That was his last incoherent thought. Then everything became blank to him. The senator stepped back when he saw that his victim was thoroughly overcome, and an evil grin spread over his face. “It would be possible to commit a murder in this room without any one knowing it!” he muttered. “If you had known just who Senator Garnford was, my trusting friend, I guess you wouldn’t have said that.” He snatched from his face the gray mustache and beard he had worn, and, if Nick Carter had been in the room, he would have known that the real name of this Senator Micah Garnford was none other than John Garrison Rayne, alias the Apache! CHAPTER IX. BLUFFING IT THROUGH. Rayne stood looking steadily into the still face of the acting governor for a few moments, as if studying the features. “Not a difficult face to make, I think,” he muttered. He stepped lightly across the room to make sure that the door was secure. Inspecting the deadlatch sharply, he decided that it would hold the door against any possible interruption. “When I get ready to go, I shall have to leave that unfastened,” he muttered. “But I dare say I can make it secure enough on the outside to suit my purpose. So long as I make my get-away, I need not care what they do here afterward.” He took off his gray wig, and stuffed it into a pocket, in company with the mustache and beard. “If I hadn’t had so much experience in making up, I should be a little nervous over this thing,” he murmured. “As it is, I dare say I can make myself into a Portersham that will pass muster.” From one of his pockets he drew a small leather case, which contained sticks of grease paint in tin foil, with other articles that he might require in making up his face. First of all, he had to take the Garnford red out of his cheeks. Then he carefully imitated the complexion of the acting governor, being particular to put on two small moles that he observed on the cheek and chin respectively of the unconscious man. In the course of ten minutes he had almost completely reproduced the features of Jabez Portersham on his own countenance. Line by line he brought out the contour of the young man’s face, with every light wrinkle, every depression, every rounded part, and every turn of expression that was part of the original, no matter how elusive and slight it might be. The first thing he did was to put on a wig of light hair, so near the hue of Portersham’s that it might almost have been made from the original. It had a touch of gray at the temples, which was so exactly like that on the sides of the acting governor’s head that it might have deceived his most intimate acquaintance.