VOLUME 1 25 Cents NUMBER 4
_Contents for June, 1923_
_Sixteen Thrilling Short Stories_
_Two Complete Novelettes_
_Two Two-Part Stories_
_Interesting, Odd and Weird Happenings_
THE EVENING WOLVES PAUL ELLSWORTH TRIEM 5
_An Exciting Tale of Weird Events_
DESERT MADNESS HAROLD FREEMAN MINERS 19
_A Fanciful Novel of the Red Desert_
THE JAILER OF SOULS HAMILTON CRAIGIE 32
_A Powerful Novel of Sinister Madmen that Mounts to an
Astounding Climax_
JACK O’ MYSTERY EDWIN MacLAREN 49
_A Modern Ghost Story_
OSIRIS ADAM HULL SHIRK 55
_A Weird Tale of an Egyptian Mummy_
THE WELL JULIAN KILMAN 57
_A Short Story_
THE PHANTOM WOLFHOUND ADELBERT KLINE 60
_A Spooky Yarn by the Author of “The Thing of a Thousand
Shapes”_
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE EDGAR ALLAN POE 64
_A Masterpiece of Weird Fiction_
THE MOON TERROR A. G. BIRCH 72
_Final Thrilling Installment of the Mysterious Chinese
Moon Worshipers_
THE MAN THE LAW FORGOT WALTER NOBLE BURNS 81
_A Remarkable Story of the Dead Returned to Life_
THE BLADE OF VENGEANCE GEORGE WARBURTON LEWIS 86
_A Powerful, Gripping Story Well Told_
THE GRAY DEATH LOUAL B. SUGARMAN 91
_Horrifying and Incredible Tale of the Amazon Valley_
THE VOICE IN THE FOG HENRY LEVERAGE 95
_Another Thriller by the Author of “Whispering Wires”_
THE INVISIBLE TERROR HUGH THOMASON 100
_An Uncanny Tale of the Jungle_
THE ESCAPE HELEN ROWE HENZE 103
_A Short Story_
THE SIREN TARLETON COLLIER 105
_A Storiette That Is “Different”_
THE MADMAN HERBERT HIPWELL 107
_A Night of Horror in the Mortuary_
THE CHAIR DR. HARRY E. MERENESS 109
_An Electrocution Vividly Described by an Eyewitness_
THE CAULDRON PRESTON LANGLEY HICKEY 111
_True Adventures of Terror_
THE EYRIE BY THE EDITOR 113
For Advertising Rates in WEIRD TALES apply to YOUNG & WARD, Advertising
Managers, 168 North Michigan Blvd., Chicago, Ill.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Finding “The Fountain of Youth”
_A Long-Sought Secret, Vital to Happiness, Has Been Discovered._
_By H. M. Stunz_
_Alas! that spring should vanish with the rose!_
_That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!_
—OMAR KHAYYAM.
A secret vital to human happiness has been discovered. An ancient problem
which, sooner or later, affects the welfare of virtually every man and
woman, has been solved. As this problem undoubtedly will come to you
eventually, if it has not come already, I urge you to read this article
carefully. It may give you information of a value beyond all price.
This newly-revealed secret is not a new “philosophy” of financial
success. It is not a political panacea. It has to do with something of
far greater moment to the individual—success and happiness in love and
marriage—and there is nothing theoretical, imaginative or fantastic
about it, because it comes from the coldly exact realms of science and
its value has been proved. It “works.” And because it does work—surely,
speedily and most delightfully—it is one of the most important
discoveries made in many years. Thousands already bless it for having
rescued them from lives of disappointment and misery. Millions will
rejoice because of it in years to come.
The peculiar value of this discovery is that it removes physical
handicaps which, in the past, have been considered inevitable and
irremediable. I refer to the loss of youthful animation and a
waning of the vital forces. These difficulties have caused untold
unhappiness—failures, shattered romances, mysterious divorces. True
happiness does not depend on wealth, position or fame. Primarily, it is
a matter of health. Not the inefficient, “half-alive” condition which
ordinarily passes as “health,” but the abundant, vibrant, magnetic
vitality of superb manhood and womanhood.
[Illustration]
Unfortunately, this kind of health is rare. Our civilization, with its
wear and tear, rapidly depletes the organism and, in a physical sense,
old age comes on when life should be at its prime.
But this is not a tragedy of our era alone. Ages ago a Persian poet,
in the world’s most melodious epic of pessimism, voiced humanity’s
immemorial complaint that “spring should vanish with the rose” and the
song of youth too soon come to an end. And for centuries before Omar
Khayyam wrote his immortal verses, science had searched—and in the
centuries that have passed since then has continued to search—without
halt, for the fabled “fountain of youth,” an infallible method of
renewing energy lost or depleted by disease, overwork, worry, excesses or
advancing age.
Now the long search has been rewarded. A “fountain of youth” has been
found! Science announces unconditionally that youthful vigor can be
restored quickly and safely. Lives clouded by weakness can be illumined
by the sunlight of health and joy. Old age, in a sense, can be kept at
bay and youth made more glorious than ever. And the discovery which makes
these amazing results possible is something any man or woman, young or
old, can easily use in the privacy of the home, unknown to relative,
friend or acquaintance.
The discovery had its origin in famous European laboratories. Brought to
America, it was developed into a product that has given most remarkable
results in thousands of cases, many of which had defied all other
treatments. In scientific circles the discovery has been known and used
for several years and has caused unbounded amazement by its quick,
harmless, gratifying action. Now in convenient tablet form, under the
name of Korex compound, it is available to the general public.
Any one who finds the youthful stamina ebbing, life losing its charm
and color or the feebleness of old age coming on too soon, can obtain
a double-strength treatment of this compound, sufficient for ordinary
cases, under a positive guarantee that it costs nothing if it fails and
only $2 if it produces prompt and gratifying results. In average cases,
the compound often brings about amazing benefits in from twenty-four to
forty-eight hours.
Simply write in confidence to the Melton Laboratories, 833 Massachusetts
Bldg., Kansas City, Mo., and this wonder restorative will be mailed to
you in a plain wrapper. You may enclose $2 or, if you prefer, just send
your name without money and pay the postman $2 and postage when the
parcel is delivered. In either case, if you report after a week that the
Korex compound has not given satisfactory results, your money will be
refunded immediately. The Melton Laboratories are nationally known and
thoroughly reliable. Moreover, their offer is fully guaranteed, so no
one need hesitate to accept it. If you need this remarkable scientific
rejuvenator, write for it today.
* * * * *
The Cleanest, Yet Most Outspoken, Book Published
There is not a man or woman married or unmarried, who does not need to
know every word contained in “Sex Conduct in Marriage.” The very numerous
tragedies which occur every day, show the necessity for plain-spokenness
and honest discussion of the most vital part of married life.
It is impossible to conceive of the value of the book; it must
undoubtedly be read to be appreciated, and it is obviously impossible
to give here a complete summary of its contents. The knowledge is not
obtainable elsewhere; there is a conspiracy of silence on the essential
matters concerning sex conduct, and the object of the author has been
to break the barriers of convention in this respect, recognizing as he
does that no marriage can be a truly happy one unless both partners are
free to express the deepest feelings they have for each other without
degrading themselves or bringing into the world undesired children.
[Illustration]
The author is an idealist who recognizes the sacredness of the sex
function and the right of children to be loved and desired before they
are born. Very, very few of us can say truly that we were the outcome of
the conscious desire of our parents to beget us. They, however, were not
to blame because they had not the knowledge which would have enabled them
to control conception.
Let us, then, see that our own marriage conduct brings us happiness and
enjoyment in itself and for our children.
A Book for Idealists by an Idealist
The greatest necessity to insure happiness in the married condition is to
know its obligations and privileges, and to have a sound understanding
of sex conduct. This great book gives this information and is absolutely
reliable throughout.
Dr. P. L. Clark, B. S., M. D., writing of this book says: “As regards
sound principles and frank discussion I know no better book on this
subject than Bernard Bernard’s ‘Sex Conduct in Marriage.’ I strongly
advise all members of the Health School in need of reliable information
to read this book.”
“I feel grateful but cheated,” writes one man. “Grateful for the new
understanding and joy in living that has come to us, cheated that we have
lived five years without it.”
SEX CONDUCT IN MARRIAGE
By BERNARD BERNARD Editor-in-Chief of “Health and Life”
Answers simply and directly, those intimate questions which Mr. Bernard
has been called upon to answer innumerable times before, both personally
and by correspondence. It is a simple, straightforward explanation,
unclouded by ancient fetish or superstition.
A few of the many headings are:—
When the Sex Function Should Be Used.
Sex Tragedies in Childhood.
The Consummation of Marriage.
The Art of a Beautiful Conception.
Sex Communion.
The Scientific Control of Conception.
Sex Fear Destroyed.
The Frequency of the Sex Act.
The Initiation to Matrimony.
Anatomy and Physiology of the Sex Organs.
The Spontaneous Expression of Love.
Why Women Have Been Subjected.
Men Who Marry in Ignorance.
Hereditary Passion.
Marriage a Joy to the End.
Send your check or money order today for only $1.75 and this remarkable
book will be sent postpaid immediately in a plain wrapper.
Health and Life Publications
Room 46-333 South Dearborn Street
CHICAGO
HEALTH AND LIFE PUBLICATIONS
Room 46-333 S. Dearborn St.,
Chicago, Illinois.
Please send me, in plain wrapper, postpaid, your book. “Sex
Conduct in Marriage.” Enclosed $1.75.
Name _________________________
Address ______________________
City _________________________
State ________________________
_The Unique
Magazine_
WEIRD TALES
_Edited by
Edwin Baird_
VOLUME ONE
NUMBER FOUR
25c a Copy
JUNE, 1923
Subscription $3.00 A YEAR
$3.50 IN CANADA
_Paul Ellsworth Triem’s Latest Novel_
The Evening Wolves
_An Exciting Tale of Weird Events_
_CHAPTER ONE_
AH WING RECEIVES A CLIENT
[Illustration]
A taxicab stopped on the corner, and two people got out. They formed a
decidedly incongruous pair; for the first to alight was a diminutive
Chinese boy, scantily dressed, while his companion appeared to be a
portly white man.
It was impossible to be sure of this fact, however, as this second
passenger wore a long overcoat, with its ulster collar turned up around
his face, and a dark cloth cap with the visor drawn down over his
forehead and eyes.
Evidently the cab driver had been paid in advance, for he swung out from
the curb as soon as his fares had dismounted, and was soon out of sight.
The Chinese boy glanced at his companion, then set off silently up a
street whose central portion was paved with cobblestones.
He seemed to know just where he was going. He paused only once, to cast a
fleeting glance over his shoulder. Then he resumed his journey.
He had seen that the man in the ulster was following; and now, after
traversing half a block of squalid, deserted street, the youngster turned
abruptly into a pestilential-looking alley. This alley lay close to the
top of a hill, and for a moment the man and the boy, who appeared to be
his guide, could look down over the roofs to where the gay lights of
Chinatown twinkled alluringly.
Presently the diminutive Oriental paused just outside a doorway. The
man who had been following him came up, with a curious suggestion of
eagerness and suspicion. Looking over the shoulder of the figure before
him, he was able to make out the entrance to a narrow flight of unlighted
stairs, which plunged steeply into the earth beneath a dilapidated
building.
“Do we have to go down there, boy?” the man demanded.
“All a-same down here, master,” the youngster replied. “You come close—I
show you!”
He began to descend as he spoke; and the man, after a moment of
hesitation, plunged through the doorway after him. His manner was that of
one who is taking a horribly unpleasant remedy, hoping to cure a still
more horrible disease.
The diminutive Chinaman reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for
his companion. When he felt the man’s heavy hand on his shoulder, he
turned to his right, advancing cautiously through an almost impenetrable
darkness.
There was a smell of dry rot in this basement, and around their feet rats
scampered and squeaked. The man’s hand shook, and his breath came with a
hissing sound through his clenched teeth.
“Now we go down again, master,” the boy announced presently. He had
paused and turned again to the right. “You keep close—I show you!”
A step at a time, they descended a second flight of stairs. On either
side were rough stone walls, powdery with mildew. The man discovered this
with his free left hand. Strange odors came to him. Abruptly a bell rang,
somewhere in the bowels of the darkness below them.
The boy stopped in his tracks.
“Now you go down, master,” he commanded. “Ah Wing waiting for you—you go
slow. Goo’-by!”
He slipped out from under the heavy hand that would have detained him,
and the man heard him go scampering like one of the rats up the stairs
and away through the upper corridors.
Terror gripped the man left alone there on the stairs. He felt that he
was in a trap—and he had been evading traps so long now that they had
become an obsession with him.
He cried out, hoarsely, and as he did so a door opened below and a flood
of light shone out.
“Pray continue your descent, Colonel Knight,” a cultured voice commanded
from somewhere within the lighted room whose door had just opened. “The
stairs are quite secure, and I am awaiting you!”
With a plunge that hinted at desperation, the man addressed as “Colonel
Knight” reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the door. He
paused there for a moment, till his eyes adjusted themselves to the
change in illumination. Then he stepped inside, and heard the heavy door
close behind him.
The room he had entered was of considerable extent, but was almost
destitute of furniture. There were bare walls, dusty with green mildew;
and bare floors, covered with layers of dust and litter. There were two
chairs, one of which was already occupied.
And as the newcomer’s eyes rested on the occupant of that chair, all his
doubts and fears returned to him. He had come to this unearthly spot
to get away from almost certain death. Now he was not certain that the
remedy would not prove worse than the disease.
The man sitting there, facing him, was dressed like a Chinaman, in silk
trousers and coat, satin slippers, and black silk cap; but his eyes were
of a metallic gray, and his high, thin-bridged nose spoke of Nordic
blood. He would have been tall had he been standing. His hands were lying
passive in his lap, but they were the hands of a man of great physical
power.
And above all these details and beyond them was something the man in the
ulster could not quite define—a radiation of power, as if the intellect
and will of this strange being seated before him saturated the atmosphere
of the empty room.
“Pray be seated, Colonel Knight!” the man in the chair said courteously.
“I am glad to meet you. You have been recommended to me by a former
student of mine—you know that I take only a few cases. It will be best
for you to tell me your story, fully and accurately.”
Colonel Knight lowered himself into the empty chair. His eyes still
peered out through the gap in his collar, and seemed to be fastened on
the face of the man before him.
Then, slowly and grudgingly he removed his cap and turned down his
collar, disclosing the pouchy face of a man well advanced into middle
age. It was a face suggesting daring and resourcefulness, this face of
Colonel Knight; and for a few moments the two sat staring curiously at
each other.
“I think I can condense that statement I have to make,” the white man
said finally. “I am a man of wealth. Five years ago, while traveling in
Europe, I had the misfortune to attract the attention of the greatest
gang of international thieves ever organized. Perhaps you have heard of
them? They were called ‘The Evening Wolves,’ and were led by a man who
called himself ‘Count von Hondon’.”
He paused for an instant to regard his companion curiously, but the
Oriental merely bowed and sat impassively waiting.
“These men must have followed me about for some time before they struck.
Finally they saw their chance. I was packed to leave Paris for Belgium,
and they undoubtedly figured that I would have much of wealth with me.
“I did—but I had other things they had overlooked. I had my pistols,
and I am a dead shot. I killed two of the robbers, and the rest fled. I
supposed that would settle the matter, but I was mistaken. Five members
of the gang were left alive, and they swore to be revenged upon me. They
have followed me—”
A bell rang shrilly somewhere close at hand, and Colonel Knight leaped
from his chair and looked wildly at his companion.
“What was that?” he cried. “That bell rang when I was descending the
stairs—”
“Someone followed you here,” the other replied, “and is now trying to
reach us. Pray continue!”
“But that man upon the stairs—”
“We will come to him presently. Let me ask you to finish!”
“There is nothing more! I have been followed for years, and now a
physical trouble is added—my physician tells me I am going blind. I can’t
see to run—”
The Chinaman eyed his companion deliberately.
“Why lie to me, my friend?” he demanded presently. “You come to me for
help, and you wish to steal my ammunition! Now let me reconstruct your
story for you. You yourself are ‘Count von Hondon.’ You were the leader
of the master crooks called ‘The Evening Wolves.’ Five years ago you
and your men made a rich haul, and you decided that a time had come to
retire, or perhaps to go in by yourself. You departed, taking with you
the loot; and ever since it has been a running fight.
“Your old comrades could have shot you outright, but that would not
restore to them the booty you stole. And you have not dared dispose of
it, because it was the only thing that stood between you and death! You
see, you can’t lie to me. Every lie carries its trade-mark with it, to
those who have eyes to see. Now I shall ask you but one question, and let
me warn you—if you lie now, you will never leave this place alive!”
He stood up and thrust an accusing finger toward the cowering thief.
“Tell me,” said the Chinaman, “the name of the person whom you and your
men robbed!”
The beady eyes of Colonel Knight, or “Count von Hondon” as he had once
been known in every capital in Europe, glittered with suspicion and
fear. His breath caught in his throat, and he unfastened his collar with
trembling fingers.
“The name,” he said hoarsely, “was—was—”
Ah Wing crossed toward the heavy door and laid his hand upon the knob.
His metallic eyes blazed, and he looked down with fierce contempt upon
the man trembling before him.
“Will you answer?” he cried. “Or shall I open this door?”
“It was a woman!” Knight whimpered. “Her name was—Madame Celia—”
He broke off and stared at the Chinaman, towering there before the
door. Ah Wing had neither spoken nor moved; but there was in the room a
disturbance as if a great voice had shouted out a curse.
Slowly the Chinaman came back toward his visitor. His face now was the
impassive face of a carved Buddha.
“Colonel Knight,” he said gently, “the high gods have undoubtedly brought
you to me. I am the only person in the world who can save you, for I
work outside of the laws of men. And I will take your case, now that I
fully understand it. But first I will ask you to show me the Resurrection
Pendant which you stole from Madame Celia!”
The white man got slowly to his feet, his hands groping at his throat,
his eyes protruding, his face the color of dough.
“The pendant!” he whispered through ashen lips. “The Resurrection
Pendant! You know—you have heard?”
“Show me the Pendant,” repeated Ah Wing inexorably. “I know that you
brought it with you tonight, just as I know that you intended, in case I
refused to take your case, to try to disappear without returning to your
hotel. Show me the Pendant!”
With faltering hands and without removing his fearful eyes from the face
of his companion, the crook reached inside his ulster and drew forth a
package wrapped in brown paper. This he slowly unfastened, disclosing a
jewel case. More and more slowly his fingers fumbled with the catch.
There came a sound from the door—a voice that seemed to have difficulty
in filtering through the heavy panels.
“Come out of that, Count! We got you over a barrel! Come out—”
The massive door shook under a terrific blow, as from a sledge. The man
in the ulster seemed about to crumple to the floor.
Ah Wing spoke coldly.
“Show me the Pendant!” he repeated. “They cannot break down that door,
but if you trifle with me I will open it!”
With hurried fingers the terror-stricken crook threw back the cover of
the jewel case, disclosing a mass of diamonds, intricately and skilfully
assembled into a great pendant.
_CHAPTER TWO_
UNDER CHINATOWN
Ah Wing took a long stride, which brought him close to the man who held
the jewel case.
The Oriental’s steely eyes were fastened unwaveringly upon the pendant,
whose history for half a century had been transcribed in suffering
and death. Misfortune had followed this unique assemblage of perfect
stones: death and insanity; the breaking of friendships; the treachery
of children toward parents; the murder of lover by lover. And now the
mysterious Chinaman seemed to have fallen under the spell of the gems,
for he was taking in every detail of their perfection.
For a moment the assault upon the door had ceased, but now it was
continued. Heavy blows fell, and the walls of the subterranean apartment
shook.
“It will not take your friends long to discover that they cannot reach us
by that route,” commented Ah Wing tranquilly, turning at last from his
inspection of the Resurrection Pendant. “The door has a middle sheeting
of boiler iron. It is bullet proof.”
He reseated himself, motioning for Colonel Knight to do the same.
Absently he watched the white man close the jewel case, wrap it carefully
in brown paper, and return it to his ulster pocket.
“And now,” continued the Chinaman, “I will ask you to tell me about these
men. You say there are five of them? Please describe them to me, one at
a time. Tell me all that you can remember as to physical and mental
characteristics—I want every detail you can give me.”
Colonel Knight sat down heavily. It was obvious that the assault upon the
door was shaking his nerves so that he could hardly command his voice.
His eyes were the eyes of some hunted thing, which sees itself at the end
of a blind alley.
With an evident effort, he tore his glance from the quivering panels and
fastened it on his companion.
“Yes,” he said hollowly, “there are five of these men, and they have been
chosen from the elite of the criminal world. I myself selected them and
trained them. Each has his special ability. I will begin with the man
whom I considered the brainiest of them all—the one who was almost my
equal in planning and executing a really big robbery. His name is Monte
Jerome.”
Suddenly the blows on the door ceased; and the room was so still, after
the ferocious assault, that it seemed to press on the ear drums of the
speaker. He winced and for a moment was silent. Then, resolutely he
continued:
“Monte is thirty-five years old. He is less than five feet six, but is
broad shouldered and powerful. He grew up in the alleys of a large city.
He fought his way to the leadership of gang after gang, and at the time I
picked him up was looking for new worlds to conquer. I chose him because
of four qualities: his physical strength; his native cunning; his lack of
sentiment—or, as it is usually called, ‘mercy’—and his absolute freedom
from superstition. Monte believes in neither God, man, nor the devil. He
was my right-hand man—and it is to his merciless pursuit that I owe my
condition!”
Ah Wing had drawn a note-book from his pocket and was jotting down data.
He glanced placidly toward the door, which was again shaking under a rain
of heavy blows.
“Pray continue!” said he.
Something of the Chinaman’s imperturbability was beginning to influence
the white man. He went on with greater assurance:
“Next to Monte Jerome in total ability, I always placed the man we called
‘Doc.’ I never knew his real name. That was not important, as he went
under many aliases. Doc was my means of approach to the wealthy men
and women—and particularly the latter—upon whom I specialized. He is a
university man, and has lived among people of wealth and refinement much
of his life.
“He has brains, but lacks the quality of ruthlessness so important in
really successful commercial crime. He is utterly selfish, I believe,
but certain necessary factors in his profession are revolting to him—and
he has never made the effort to put down this weakness. Physically he
is prepossessing: an inch or two over six feet in height, blue eyes,
light brown hair, splendid carriage; and possessed of the manners of a
Chesterfield.”
A thin, faint voice came through the door, upon which the tattoo had
momentarily ceased:
“We’ve got you, Count! Open that door, or we’ll gouge your eyes out when
we break in!”
Ah Wing waved his hand affably toward the source of this ominous promise.
“And our friend out there?” said he. “Is he one of those whom you have
described?”
“I was just coming to him,” replied Colonel Knight, raising a shaking
hand to his forehead and mopping off the beaded perspiration. “That is
‘Billy the Strangler,’ and I think the ‘Kid’ is with him. Those were my
Apaches—my gun men—my killers. They are much alike. Both have cunning of
a low order; and persistence—they are like bloodhounds, once they are put
on the trail.
“They have been Monte’s most useful tools in his pursuit of me. But both
are superstitious, and their native bloodthirstiness has grown on them
till they are little better than homicidal maniacs. The Strangler is tall
and slim, with high cheek bones and lean arms which seem to be threaded
with steel wires. The Kid is of medium height, with grey eyes and sandy
hair.”
The assault on the door had again been discontinued. Suddenly there
came from directly overhead a sound of splintering boards, accompanied
by a rain of dust and bits of plaster. Knight sprang up and retreated,
snarling, toward a corner of the empty room.
“Ah, I have been waiting to see if your old comrades would think of
that,” he commented. “It gives us a line on their resourcefulness.”
Colonel Knight regarded him with drawn lips, which exposed his yellow
teeth.
“For God’s sake, what are we to do?” he cried. “Are you armed? You sit
there like a statue—”
“Pray continue your very interesting description,” suggested Ah Wing.
“There remains one of your band whom you have not described. I must know
about him—and then I will deal with this other matter!”
For an instant the thief glared into the face of the man seated across
from him. What he read there steadied him a little, although the crash
of splintering boards from above told him that the men he had such good
reason to fear were meeting with less resistance in this direction than
they had encountered in their assault upon the door.
“There remains but one,” he said hoarsely. “That is Louie Martin, my gem
expert. Martin is one of the best judges of diamonds and pearls in the
world. He is an expert in recutting and remounting stolen jewelry. And
he has a wide acquaintance among the crooked dealers of this country and
Europe—”
An extensive area of plaster broke away suddenly and crashed down,
tumbling about the heads and shoulders of the two occupants of the room.
At the same instant the end of a heavy gas-pipe crashed through the
laths, and the voices of the men on the floor above were raised in a
shout of ferocious triumph.
Ah Wing stood up deliberately and looked toward the ceiling. He seemed
to be measuring the progress of the men opposed to him. Then, without
hurrying he crossed the room toward a dimly lighted corner, where he
stooped and opened a small door in the wall. This door was built in
segments, like that of a safe; and was hinged with metal plates of
enormous strength.
Colonel Knight, who cowered directly behind the Chinaman, felt a breath
of cool, moist air, smelling strongly of earthy decay, blowing up from
this diminutive doorway.
“Kindly precede me, Colonel,” commanded Ah Wing. “Watch your step—the
going is rather precipitous!”
Knight stooped and made his way through the opening. He found himself on
a stairway which went steeply down into utter darkness.
A cloud of white dust filtered up into the light of the electric bulb;
and, as Ah Wing stood watching, a lithe human figure landed with a crash
on top of the heap of plaster and splintered boards and laths.
In the same instant the Chinaman passed silently through the small
doorway, and his companion heard him slipping the bolts into place.
The darkness which had suddenly clutched them was so intense that it
seemed to have physical substance. A squeaking sound from above brought
Knight’s face swiftly up. Something cold and reptilian flapped into his
eyes and, with another _squeak_, was gone.
“Only a bat!” said Ah Wing softly. “Rest your hand on my shoulder and
feel your way a step at a time. I will turn on my flashlight!”
A conical beam of light drilled through the darkness below them, and Ah
Wing’s companion saw that they were descending a narrow flight of stone
steps that seemed to terminate in a panel of utter blackness. The walls
on each side were damp; and pallid fungi had taken the place of the
mildew of the cellars above.
“For God’s sake, where are we?” the white man demanded through chattering
teeth. “This looks like the shaft of a mine!”
“This is part of the underground system which made Chinatown famous,
before the disaster of 1906,” replied the Oriental. “Few white men have
ever been down here—particularly of late years!”
He paused. They had reached a narrow landing, from which passages
branched in half a dozen directions. Another descending stairway yawned
ahead.
“If I were to leave you here,” smiled Ah Wing, “you would never find
your way out! You could not go back the way you have come, for there are
acute-angled branches which would confuse you. Most of them end in masses
of rubbish, easily dislodged by the unwary! But with me you are safe!”
His voice had an ominous softness. Knight followed down along the second
flight of stairs. His heart was pounding. Suppose these crumbling walls
should collapse! Suppose this unearthly being, in whose hands his safety
lay, decided to rob him!
Ah Wing spoke abruptly:
“We have been following down the face of a hill. Now we reach the level,
and here we leave these catacombs!”
He turned sharply to the left and led the way along a short passage which
terminated in a second diminutive door. Ah Wing shot back the bolts and
motioned for his companion to proceed him into the room beyond.
Knight obeyed. Daylight was there—white, blazing daylight! He blinked as
he crept through the opening.
Next moment he tried to cry out. An arm had passed in front of his body,
pinioning him. In the same instant a sinewy hand came close to his face,
and there was a little tinkle of broken glass—a diminutive globule had
been broken under his nose.
The thief struggled to turn his head aside, fought to keep from breathing
in the stupefying fumes; but with a smothering gasp he surrendered.
He breathed deeply, and as he did so a sudden feeling of lightness and
of expansion came upon him. In the act of wondering stupidly what this
substance was that the Chinaman had forced upon him, his mind went blank.
Ah Wing continued for a moment to hold his hand over the mouth and
nostrils of his victim. Then he carried Knight across the room and laid
him on a divan. Turning deliberately, he pressed an electric button.
Somewhere in the brooding silence of the building, beyond this room, a
deep throated bell rang clamorously.
_CHAPTER THREE_
THE EVENING WOLVES
High in an apartment house, overlooking a street and something of the
city, Monte Jerome, leader of the Evening Wolves, sat at his ease, a
cigarette in the corner of his thin, merciless mouth, a telephone within
reach.
From the back rooms of the apartment came the sound of heavy breathing,
intermingled with an energetic and unmusical snore. Louie Martin, gem
expert for the gang, and “Doc,” their society specialist, were sleeping.
Monte listened critically to the heavy breathing. He was an expert in
such matters, and his seasoned judgment told him that neither of his
comrades was faking sleep.
With a nod of satisfaction, he stood up and walked soundlessly into the
corridor connecting the rooms, stopping first in that occupied by “Doc,”
and then in the back room where Louie Martin was sleeping. In each room
he paused long enough to make a thorough search of the clothing of the
sleeping robber.
Monte went expeditiously through all the pockets, and even examined
the linings. Just a little exhibition of the honor that obtains among
thieves: Monte Jerome knew that his leadership depended on his ability to
command his companions’ unwilling respect, and he was taking no chances.
“I got a hunch Doc is thinking of ditching the gang, and going it for
himself,” Monte murmured as he returned toward the front room. “If he
thinks—”
The ’phone bell rang suddenly, and the man on duty crossed to the
instrument.
“Yes?” he said.... “Oh, hello, Billy.... What’s that—Hell’s bells! Got
away! Get busy and find him—”
The voice of the Strangler came to him over the wire.
“Keep your shirt on, Chief!” it commanded. “You better come down here
and see for yourself what we was up against!”
Two minutes later Monte was shaking Louie Martin awake.
“Come to life!” Monte grated. “The Count has made his getaway! You get
into your clothes and tend ’phone! This is one hell of a mess!”
Martin climbed sluggishly and unwillingly out of bed.
“You’ve been running things,” he snarled. “If you’ve got ’em in a mess,
it’s no one’s fault but your own!”
* * * * *
At a corner on the outskirts of Chinatown, Monte alighted from his taxi.
This was a special machine, owned and operated by a crook who dealt
indiscriminately in transportation, dope and bootleg whisky.
Monte commanded this worthy citizen to await his return, and plunged into
a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys.
A shrill whistle sounded presently, and he saw the Strangler beckoning
him from a doorway. Crossing over, Monte followed his henchman into an
alley, down a flight of narrow stairs, and into an unlighted basement.
Here they were joined by the “Kid,” who carried an electric torch.
“Come on, Chief,” the “Kid” commanded. “We’ll show you first what we was
up against—watch your step! If you stub your toe you’ll land in hell!”
They turned and went down another stairway, narrower and steeper than
the first. At the bottom their way was barred by a heavy door, studded
with great iron bolts. In one place the wood had been battered away,
disclosing the gleaming surface of a steel panel.
“We followed the Count here, and thought we had him cornered,” the “Kid”
drawled, rolling his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other
and regarding Monte through lazy, sardonic eyes. “When we saw we couldn’t
get through this way, we went up to the floor above and come at him
through the ceiling. Come along—we’ll show you!”
They went back up one flight of stairs and entered a room which evidently
had long been unused. Its walls were crumbling, and in the middle a great
hole had been torn in the floor. The Strangler, who was leading the way,
crossed over to this opening and unhesitatingly disappeared through it.
Next moment a yellow light filtered up through the opening.
“Down you go, Chief,” commanded the “Kid.” “This was the door we made!”
Monte made his way down through the opening, landing on the upper of
two chairs which had been piled precariously together to assist in
the descent. He was followed by the “Kid,” and the three crooks stood
examining the room in which Ah Wing and Colonel Knight had held their
conference.
Monte spoke with a snarl.
“All right, you two!” he cried, “Here is where he was! Where is he now?
Come across with your alibi!”
His two companions exchanged significant glances and the “Kid” took a
slouching step closer to Monte.
“Look here, Chief,” said he, “it ain’t gonna be healthy for you to
talk that way to me! I’m not spielin’ no alibi. What I’m givin’ you is
straight goods, and you better get that twist out of your mush and act
like a gentleman!”
He paused; and his two crumpled ears, which spoke of vicissitudes in the
prize ring, grew red as a rooster’s comb. His glassy gray eyes glared
unblinkingly at Monte.
The latter was not afraid of either of these men, or of both of them
together. Monte had the unflinching courage of the perfect animal. But he
had no notion of breaking up a gang which might prove useful to him.
“All right, boys,” he agreed, more pacifically, although his dark eyes
continued to glow like coals. “If you can afford to take it easy, you got
nothing on me! Tell me what happened.”
“That’s more like it,” the “Kid” growled. “Now you’re talking like a
gentleman, Chief! Well, we follows the Count here, and thinks we has him
holed up. We can’t bust down that door—this is an old Chink gambling
hell, and everything is stacked against a fellow that wants to get in.
But we comes down through the roof—”
Suddenly the “Kid” paused. From somewhere behind there had come a sound
as of the opening of a door. The eyes of his two companions followed his
and together they stood, rigid and alert.
Slowly the back wall of the room opened out toward them. Unconsciously,
the crooks shrank closer together. Their faces were drawn, their figures
rigid.
The panel swung fully open, and a figure appeared in it. It was the form
of a tall man, clad in black silk.
The three crooks stood staring at him silently. So unexpected had been
his appearance that it had affected them with a sort of paralysis. Their
mouths gaped open and their eyes bulged.
Serenely, the intruder stood looking down upon them; and then, with a
courteous wave of his hand, he spoke.
“Pardon my intrusion, gentlemen!” said he. “My little affairs can wait—I
will return later!”
He turned, and next moment the panel had swung silently shut behind him.
Monte Jerome was the first of the three to recover.
“Come on—we’ve got to get him!” he cried.
“That was the Chink we saw spieling with the Count,” the “Kid” cried
hoarsely. “But, for the love of cripe, how did he get here?”
Monte snarled wolfishly:
“Ask _him_ that! We’ve got to bust through here—”
His compact body landed against the panel. It shook, but refused to yield.
“Come back here! Now, all together!” bellowed Monte.
The three leaped forward and struck the partition.
This time it swung inward, slowly and without a sound. The crooks leaped
through the opening, and the “Kid” flashed his torch. They were standing
just inside a vast, windowless room, at whose farther side they had a
glimpse of sagging timbers and ruined walls. Nowhere was there a sign of
the man who had eluded them.
“Get a move on!” Monte growled throatily. His lip drew up and he snarled
at his companions. “A hell of a bunch of crooks, we are! Why didn’t you
take a shot at him, when you saw he was going to make a getaway?”
The “Kid” glared back.
“Cut out that kind of talk, Chief! You got a gat, and two hands! He
buffaloed you just like he did us! Be a sport and take your medicine!”
A determined search of the ruined chamber yielded no results. The “Kid”
dropped to his stomach and wormed his way under the mass of timbers at
the farther side. He found the beginning of a stone-lined tunnel, which
dipped abruptly into the earth.
Damp, mouldy air fanned his cheeks; and as he crouched, motionless,
listening, a distant reverberation came to him from the bowels of the
earth. It sounded like the clanking of a great iron door.
“Let me out of this!” he growled, as he backed toward his companions. “We
got a fat chance of following that yellow devil into his hole. You go, if
you want to!”
Monte shook his head. He had regained his poise, and he had been thinking.
“No use trying to follow,” he admitted. “We got to comb Chinatown for the
two of them. They can’t live down in that burrow forever. But why did
this duck show himself? He must have known we were here—he could hear us
talking!”
The “Kid” smiled craftily.
“Maybe him and the Count left something,” he suggested. “We better have a
look!”
“No, they didn’t leave nothing. I would have seen it if they had. I got
an idea the Chink _wanted us to see him_! He stood there with his face
turned into the light. Well, we got to find him! That’s flat!”
_CHAPTER FOUR_
THE MAN IN THE LIGHTED ROOM
The wolves shifted their quarters that night to a rooming-house on the
edge of Chinatown, and the search for Colonel Knight and his mysterious
companion, the tall Chinaman, began.
For three days they worked feverishly. Monte Jerome seemed never to
sleep, and his temper was not at all improved by the ordeal. He drove his
companions fiercely, and only the fact that they were playing for big
stakes prevented open rebellion.
On the fourth day Monte and the “Kid,” who were loitering, alert but
almost hopeless, in the entrance to a building in one of the narrow
streets of the Oriental quarter, caught sight of a figure disappearing
through a doorway. It was a tall figure, partly concealed by a light
overcoat; but both of them leaped forward at the same instant.
“That was the Chink, sure as God made little red apples!” the “Kid”
snapped.
They crossed the street. Several automobiles were drawn up close to the
curb, among them a big blue limousine from which the Chinaman had stepped
a moment before they identified him. Monte approached a well-dressed
gentleman, who had just come out of the building, and asked him what was
going on inside.
“This is the fall exhibition of the Iconoclasts,” the stranger explained
good-naturedly.
He seemed to be sizing up the two crooks.
“I think you boys would enjoy it,” he added mischievously. “The admission
is only fifty cents.”
Monte and the “Kid” bought tickets, and presently they entered a big
room with a high ceiling, upon whose walls were hung a number of gaudy
paintings. The newcomers stared round at the fifty or more spectators who
were making the rounds of the gallery.
“Hell!” growled the “Kid,” “this ain’t no place for an honest strongarm
man—Let’s beat it and send for Doc!”
Monte gripped his arm.
“Look!” he said under his breath. “Over there near the corner!”
The “Kid” looked stealthily as directed, and perceived the tall man in
the gray topcoat. He was standing with his back to them, examining a red
and yellow daub that looked like an omelette liberally seasoned with
paprika.
“That’s him!” Monte whispered. “All right, Kid! You have Mike bring the
cab down to the corner where we was waiting. Then, when this duck beats
it out of here, I’ll hop in and we’ll follow him!”
Half an hour later the tall man in the gray coat—who in American
garb looked more like an Oriental than he had when dressed as a
Chinaman—paused to look deliberately at his watch, and then turned to the
outer door.
By the time he stepped into the blue limousine, Monte had reached the
corner and was climbing in beside the driver of the taxi. The “Kid” had
the window down, and was kneeling with his head close to the driver’s.
“How ’bout it, Mike!” Monte demanded. “Can you keep ’em in sight?”
“Watch me!” snorted the driver. “There ain’t no Chink going can leave me
behind. Did you see that chauffeur? Got a face like a monkey!”
There was no difficulty, for the present, in keeping the blue limousine
in sight, however. It went sedately down a side street and took the turn
toward the ferry. Five minutes later Monte and the Kid saw the cab in
which they were seated draw in behind the larger car, and roll over the
landing platform. The limousine was stationed on the right, and the cab
on the left, of the big boat.
Monte scrambled down, and with a curt command to the other two made his
way around to where he could see the enclosed car. The man in the gray
overcoat was sealed inside, with a coffee-brown Chinaman in livery at the
wheel. Monte kept them in sight till the ferry was approaching the slip.
Then he hurried back and climbed in again beside the driver.
“Here’s where they’ll try to leave us behind, if they have any idea we’re
following!” he predicted.
“Let ’em,” growled Mike. “If we don’t get took in by a speed cop, I won’t
never let no Chink drive away from me! You boys just hang onto your
bonnets, and watch us!”
The big blue car seemed to have accepted this challenge. The little man
at the wheel swung out and passed half a dozen slower machines, then took
the center of the road and held it.
With the coming of evening, a powdery fog swooped down over the ridges to
the west, and suddenly the tail lights of the limousine shot up in the
gloom ahead. Notch by notch, the Chinese chauffeur was adding to his
speed. The lighter car behind bounced and swayed, and Mike spat through
his teeth.
“Say, that bird must be clear nuts!” he growled. “If we get took in,
they’ll sentence us to about five life-times! What say, gents? Want to
let him go?”
“You keep going!” snarled Monte, staring hardeyed into the fog. “If we
get pinched, I pay for it, see? But don’t you let that bird get away, if
you want to sleep in your little bed tonight!”
Mike glanced sideways at the man whose elbow touched his. Something
he saw in the stony face of Monte Jerome caused him to turn all his
attention to the task in hand.
The tail lights had been growing dim, but now, slowly, the cab began to
gain. Other cars, headed for the ferry, shot out of the fog and into it,
honking warning horns at the crazily lurching machine that burned the
road in pursuit of the blue limousine. The stony faces of the three men
in the cab never deviated from their straight glare into the gloom ahead.
The speed of the big car was slackening. The driver of the cab grinned
wryly.
“He knows the ropes. Speed cop in this burg ahead lies awake nights
thinking up new ways of raising hell for speedy drivers,” he explained.
“Now we’ll creep up on ’em a little more!”
They passed through the little town and again were in the open country.
The limousine continued its more leisurely progress, however, and
presently turned to the right into a dirt road. The cab dropped farther
behind, at Monte’s command.
“They can’t get away from us on this road. Probably aren’t going far, and
we don’t want them to spot us. Take it easy!”
The road seemed to be leading gently down, and presently they caught the
gleam of water on each side. Rushes grew up close to the track; and from
somewhere in the dusk the cry of a gull sounded like the wailing of a
lost soul.
Involuntarily, the “Kid” shivered.
“Hell of a country!” he mumbled. “Where you reckon he’s headed for?”
“Wait and see!” snapped Monte. “Hello!—he’s turning in! That must be a
private road! Stop here!”
He slid from the seat and stood swinging his feet alternately, to restore
the circulation in them. Then he jerked his head into the darkness.
“Come on, Kid! We got to see what he’s up to!”
The “Kid” clambered out, and the two crooks struck silently up the road.
They reached the turn and found, as they had guessed, that they were at
the entrance to a private road.
Instinctively, the two men paused and stared in through the trees. Night
pressed thick and damp about them. A wind from the southeast brought to
them the smell of the marshes, and once the booming whistle of a steamer
sounded. In a lull of the wind, the gulls were screaming.
“This ain’t in my line, Chief!” snarled the “Kid,” glaring into the
darkness. “I can bump a guy off under the city lights as nifty as the
next one, but this nature stuff never did set right on my stomach. Let’s
go back!”
“You go back if you want to!” Monte said menacingly. “But if you do,
don’t come sniveling around me later on. I’m going in there!”
He struck off along the winding road, and in a moment the “Kid” fell into
step at his side.
Without a word, the two advanced till suddenly the lights of a building
shone upon them. They paused for a moment, then began to creep nearer,
keeping in the shelter of clumps of bushes. In this way they came close
enough to discern the outlines of a large and well-built house, with a
broad frontage and two wings extending from the rear.
“For the love of cripe!” whispered the “Kid,” “would you look at them
windows! Barred, every damn one of them!”
Monte nodded.
“Looks like a private foolish house to me,” he replied in the same
cautious tone. “Come on—we’ll get around behind and see what we can make
out!”
The musty darkness of the night, which had settled down around them, was
now an advantage, as it made it easier for the two Wolves to get close
to the house without being seen. They crept past the massive front, with
its broad steps and wide porch, and continued till they came opposite the
west wing. Most of the windows in this wing were dark, but toward the
back they saw several lighted panels.
“Come on!” commanded Monte. “I hope that Chink doesn’t keep a dog, but
plug him if one comes at you!”
On they crept till they were close to the windows. Massive and sinister
against the light, stood the iron bars which had first caught their
attention. They crept closer, and finally Monte hauled himself up into a
gnarly pepper tree whose lacy branches almost touched the nearest of the
lighted windows.
Next moment he reached down and grasped his companion’s shoulder.
“Come up here!” he grated, speaking half aloud in his excitement. “Don’t
slip—catch that limb! There you are!”
He assisted the “Kid” to a foothold beside himself, and together they
stared through the foliage and into the lighted room beyond.
The curtains were drawn aside and the shade rolled up. Seated in full
view of the two crooks was the man they had been following for five
years. He wore a dressing-gown, and beside his easy chair was a low table
on which rested a leather covered box.
Suddenly he turned, raised the cover of the box—and Monte and the “Kid”
held their breath and stared hungrily. The light was caught and split up
into a cascade of vivid colors. The man in the dressing-gown seemed to
have in his clutching hands a fountain of fire.
“The Resurrection Pendant!” snarled the “Kid,” reaching for his pistol.
“Damn him!”
Monte gripped his companion by the wrist.
“None of that, you fool!” he hissed. “We’ve got to play safe—but the
Count is caught in a trap! That Chink must have kidnapped him!”
_CHAPTER FIVE_
ONE OF AH WING’S DOOR KEEPERS
Colonel Knight awoke and lay staring at the ceiling. It seemed a
surprisingly long distance from him—and then his glance narrowed.
He turned his head, and suddenly sat up in bed. He had just remembered
the events preceding his loss of consciousness.
Ponderingly, he examined his surroundings. He was in a big room, with
a high ceiling. There were two windows at his right and one straight
ahead, the latter partly open. Several easy chairs, a handsome mahogany
house desk, and a row of bookcases flanking a fireplace came to him as
successive details of his environment. A bar of yellow sunlight streamed
through the end window.
A door behind him opened, and he turned to see a grinning, brown-faced
Chinese boy approaching his bedside, bearing a breakfast tray.
“Ah Wing say he coming to see you by-m-by,” the newcomer commented
placidly. “You hab breakfast now.”
He drew up a table and placed the tray in position, then skillfully
arranged napkin and silverware—which were of the best quality—convenient
to Colonel Knight’s hand. Afterward he withdrew.
Knight’s head felt clear enough, but, mentally and physically, he was
relaxed to the point of incoherence. He wanted to think, but couldn’t.
Mechanically, he lifted to his lips the cup of steaming coffee that the
servant had poured for him. The taste of the hot, bitter fluid—he drank
it without cream or sugar—helped him pull himself together. He remembered
everything now: his visit to the mysterious Chinaman; the coming of his
enemies, and their attack on the basement room; his flight with Ah Wing;
and the latter’s ruse for bringing Knight fully within his power.
Sharply he turned his head and looked again at the end window; it was
barred with heavy iron rods, and so were the two windows at the side.
This room in which he lay was a luxurious prison!
The door opened again, softly, and Colonel Knight turned his head to find
Ah Wing advancing toward him, dressed in white flannel trousers, silk
shirt, and serge coat. In such a rig the newcomer looked every inch a
Chinaman.
“Good morning, Colonel,” Ah Wing greeted his guest courteously. “I am
glad to see you looking so fresh and rested this morning!”
Knight began to tremble.
“You yellow crook!” he croaked, his hands drawing up into knots. “So that
was your scheme—to rob me, and then kidnap me? But don’t think you can
get away with it—”
Ah Wing approached the bed and deftly reached under the nearer of the two
pillows. From this place of concealment he drew two things: the morocco
jewel case, and a revolver that Knight remembered having carried in his
inside coat pocket.
“Here are the principle articles of your property, Colonel Knight,” said
the master of the house. “The other things you will find after you are
dressed.”
He paused to watch the man in the bed open the leather box and stare
hungrily at the flashing jewels. Then he continued.
“There was an ordeal ahead of you, my friend, and you were in no
condition to go through with it. You needed rest, but your nerves were
screwed up to the snapping point. There was only one way to get you
safely out of the city, and I used it.”
“You mean that the Wolves don’t know where I am?” Knight demanded.
“Not yet. I shall remedy that presently.”
Colonel Knight’s voice rose into a snarl:
“Remedy it? You mean you want them to know?”
“Of course I want them to know. I want them here, where I can deal with
them. But never fear, my friend. Your old enemies will never be able to
hurt you!”
He paused and looked around the apartment, then turned again to the man
in the bed.
“These are your quarters. Adjoining your bedroom is the bath. This door
opens into your sitting-room, and adjoining that is my conservatory,
which you are at liberty to visit when you choose. There are no
conditions placed upon your residence here except that you are not to try
to leave the house without my permission—_and you are to leave the end
window exactly as it is_. Don’t even lay your hand upon it, or upon the
sill! This is important!”
Knight stared again at the single end window through which the sun was
shining. He stared from it to the face of the strange being who continued
to regard him with the impersonal interest of a Buddha. A sense of
baffled curiosity arose within him, and he made a nervous, protesting
movement with one of his puffy hands.
“Who the devil _are_ you, anyway?” he broke out. “Ah Wing! That doesn’t
mean anything to me—as well say ‘Mr. X!’ You are not a Chinaman. What and
who are you?”
Ah Wing continued to stare imperturbably down at his guest, but the ghost
of a smile showed at the corners of his usually expressionless mouth.
“No,” he agreed, “I am not a Chinaman. And I am not a Caucasian. You see
that, dressed as I am today, I look unmistakably Oriental. Dressed like a
man of Hong Kong, on the other hand, I look American or English. That has
been my curse, and perhaps my blessing: the mixing of two irreconcilable
blood lines has made me an outcast. I have no place in the government of
any country, and therefore I have organized a government of my own.
“I am the emperor, the president, the king, of an invisible empire. I
rule by right of intellect and will, and my first failure will be my
death warrant; for, judged even by the standards of a thief like you,
Colonel Knight, I am an outlaw—one who is outside the protection of the
laws of men!”
He laughed, a short, mirthless laugh. As he crossed toward the door he
said over his shoulder, “Remember about the window. I shall be going out
from time to time, but if you carry out my instructions to the letter, no
harm can come to you even in this house of hidden dangers.”
Try as he would, Colonel Knight could find nothing wrong with his
situation as it had been outlined to him by Ah Wing. He spent most of
the first day in the room in which he had awakened. From the windows in
one direction he could see a landscaped lawn and hillside, dotted with
shrubbery and intersected by winding gravel paths.
From the rear window concerning which he had been so curiously warned
by the master of the house, he looked out over a bit of lawn bordering
a kitchen garden. Beyond the garden lay a marshy field, and in the
distance he made out a canal along which an occasional motor boat chugged
industriously. No, there was nothing wrong here—he could hardly have
hoped for a more peaceful place in which to rest and grow strong.
But—there was an air of brooding watchfulness over the silent house. He
heard an occasional padded footstep passing the door of his sitting-room.
Once he looked out. At the farther side of an extensive conservatory the
brown-faced servant who had brought him his breakfast was spraying some
snaky-looking vines bearing huge orange-colored flowers. Colonel Knight
closed the door. Something about the place—the quiet and the isolation,
perhaps, were getting on his nerves.
The second day passed as the first, but toward noon of the third day Ah
Wing knocked at his door and entered noiselessly. He was dressed in his
Oriental garb, and again looked like a poorly-disguised white man.
“I will be going out for a few hours this afternoon, Colonel,” he
explained, regarding the man before him with his habitual unwinking
stare. “I am taking Lim with me, and I think it will be best for you to
remain in your quarters.”
Although his words had taken the form of a request, there was back of
them the force of a command. The white man eyed him suspiciously, but
presently nodded.
Some time later he heard the _whir_ of a starting motor. Lim had brought
him his luncheon, and now Knight figured the house would be deserted. He
smiled. This would be his opportunity to look around a bit. The instincts
of the crook were strong within him, and he was immensely curious with
regard to the house of Ah Wing.
He waited an hour after he had heard the car leave the garage—from the
back window he had caught a glimpse of it: a gray roadster of moderate
size and power. Now he felt sure that he would not be interrupted.
Crossing to the door of the conservatory, he passed into it. Along one
side were orchids, Colonel Knight realized vaguely that the collection
must be priceless. Many of them were growing in diminutive glass rooms,
upon whose walls he saw heavy drops of moisture.
One pale green blossom near him had weird markings in white and yellow,
which gave it a disturbing resemblance to a grinning human face. The
man thrust out a curious finger and touched it: the blossom drew itself
together like a conscious thing, and he became aware of a sickening
perfume which in an instant turned him dizzy.
He shrank back and continued his journey. The concrete floor narrowed,
and at his left he saw a lily pond, upon whose surface great white
blossoms showed their buttery yellow centers. Between the pads and
blossoms of the lilies the water showed, deep and dark.
Colonel Knight leaned forward to peer into the pool; then, with a choking
cry he staggered back, his face drained of blood: an ugly black snout had
shot up out of the murky depths, and a huge lizard, with short, powerful
forelegs armed with long claws, stared hungrily up at him.
He found his appetite for exploration losing its edge. He was tempted
to turn back, but he wanted to settle one point: in case he should want
to leave this house, how could he best do it? The windows were securely
barred, but there must be plenty of doors.
A hall opened out from the conservatory, and on either side were rooms,
variously furnished. He hurried on. Ahead, he saw a door which seemed
to give upon the outer world. He grasped the knob. The door was locked,
and the lock was one which a glance told him could be neither picked nor
smashed.
Turning, he explored the rear of the house. In the east wing he found the
kitchens and servants’ quarters, but a door which probably communicated
with the kitchen gardens was locked.
Suddenly his wandering eyes caught the handle of a door in an angle
of the pantry. He approached it and found that it opened upon a stair
leading down. A gust of warm, damp air came up through the stairway, and
for a moment Knight paused, sniffing curiously.
He found himself thinking of a certain sultry afternoon in India, when
he had gone out into the simmering jungle. There was the same wild smell
here—
He had his revolver in his hip pocket. That gave him confidence, and he
must know if it would be possible for him to escape in this direction.
A phrase spoken by Ah Wing came to him—“Even in this house of hidden
dangers!” But what dangers could there be?
Colonel Knight felt his way down into the basement. He found that it lay
almost entirely below the level of the grounds, but presently his eyes
became accustomed to the dusk and he could discern his surroundings.
He was in a broad and deep room, filled with a litter of packing cases,
discarded articles of furniture, and a few garden tools. At its farther
side was a door. Slowly and cautiously, the investigator made his way
toward this.
It opened into a dark and narrow passage. He made his way along this,
trying the handles of two locked doors, one on the right and the other on
the left. Then he came to the end of the passage and to another door.
Cautiously, he opened it and looked inside: before him lay a room
somewhat better lighted than the passage, but absolutely destitute of
furniture. He crossed the threshold and stood for a long moment looking
about him. The smell which he had associated with that hot afternoon in
the jungle came to him almost overpoweringly now, but beyond he saw a
door with an iron-barred transom. He wanted to try that door.
He had crossed halfway toward it when some subtle sense of danger brought
him to a stop. He looked back. Nothing.
Then, with a start, he looked up, into the dusky ceiling. Something was
moving there—he stepped back, drawing in his breath with a sharp hissing
intake of terror. He backed toward the door. It was taking shape, up
there among some uncovered beams and pipes—a huge column that seemed to
have come alive! Slowly it swung down in a great curve.
Colonel Knight stood frozen in his tracks. It was a snake—but such a
snake! He knew that this was no waking vision, but a horrible reality—
With a choking cry, he turned and ran as he had never run before in his
life. Behind him he heard a hissing as of sand being poured from an
elevation into a tin pail. A box was overturned. The thing was gaining
on him—he turned, and with bulging eyes he saw the python strung out
along the floor, its great body undulating, its flat head raised, its
unblinking eyes burning through the dusk.
He could never make the stairs. At the left was a small door. He threw
himself upon it and clutched the handle—it came open and, without looking
before him, he threw himself forward. Something struck against the door
as he jerked it shut, and he could hear that uncanny sand blast louder
than before.
Groping about him in the utter darkness of this refuge, he found a metal
contrivance—a wheel, with a metal stem connecting it with a large iron
pipe. He was in the closet which housed the intake of the water system.
Then he remembered his revolver. It would be of little use to him against
the horrible thing coiled outside.
* * * * *
When Ah Wing returned to the house, several hours later, he went quietly
through the hall and conservatory to the door of Colonel Knight’s
apartment.
Satisfied by a brief inspection that his “guest” was not in his rooms,
the Chinaman turned and made his way to the basement door. His face was
as serene as usual, but his eyes shone with a metallic gleam. He opened
the door and for a moment stood listening.
An angry and prolonged _hiss_, which sounded like a great jet of steam,
came plainly to him. He stepped into the hallway and deliberately closed
the door behind him. Then he felt his way down the stairs, pausing within
a few steps of the bottom to look unwinkingly about.
Something was moving in the dim shadows at the farther side of the room.
It came slowly toward him, and he could make out the undulating length of
the python. Ah Wing’s glowing eyes rested unwaveringly on the flat, evil
head of the great snake, which came toward him more and more slowly.
With a final prolonged _hiss_, the python drew itself up into a huge
coil. It was a tremendous creature, as large as a man’s body at its
greatest diameter: but now it seemed to be turning slowly to stone. Its
beady eyes grew dull, and its swaying head became rigid.
A muffled cry reached the ears of the motionless Chinaman. Without the
flicker of an eyelid, he continued to stare down at the python.
Presently he descended to the foot of the stairs. The snake was still.
Ah Wing crossed to the closet door and threw it open.
“You can leave your retreat now, Colonel Knight,” he said. “My little
playmate is temporarily in a condition of catalepsy—but I would not
advise you to repeat this visit!”
_CHAPTER SIX_
LOUIE MARTIN LEARNS THE SECRET OF THE WINDOW
Monte and the “Kid” went back to the city that same evening, but early
next morning the leader of the Wolves returned to the neighborhood where
they had picked up the trail of Colonel Knight.
Monte had caught sight of a “For Rent” sign in the upper window of a
cottage half a mile from the big house, and he wasted no time in hunting
up the rental agent and signing a lease. By evening he had his men with
him, and the battle lines were established for the final conflict.
“We got to get all the dope on this Chink and his layout we can,” Monte
explained to his companions, as they sat smoking in the parlor of their
new home. “We might try to rush the house, but I don’t like the looks of
it. Chances are that Chink’s got a machine gun or a bunch of sawed-off
pump guns there. We’ll have to size things up.”
He paused to stare at his men.
“Any kicks on that? All right, it’s settled. Louie, it’s your turn for
sentry duty, and you better get over to the Chink’s castle now. At two
o’clock I’ll send Doc over to relieve you. You might take a look at the
windows, and see if any of them can be handled without a saw—there may be
some loose bars!”
Louie Martin, the gem expert, was a little tallow-faced man with a
straggling, peaked beard and shifty eyes. He had no real appetite for
this sort of thing, but for personal reasons he was more willing than
usual to go on duty tonight.
Slipping his automatic into the holster under his arm, he struck off
along the road toward the house of Ah Wing, whose gables were visible
from the cottage. A light wind was blowing from the southeast, and he
could see the mist rising over the marshes. Somewhere from the steamy air
above a night heron screamed raucously. Involuntarily, Louie shivered.
He was glad to turn his thoughts to his own immediate affairs. Louie
Martin had made up his mind to strike out for himself. He had always
admired Colonel Knight—or “Count von Hondon”—for the shrewd stroke of
business he had done; and Louie was keen enough to perceive that Monte
Jerome was not equal to the task of holding the Wolves together. At the
present time there was open dissension among them. One of these days
one of them would squeal on the others—that was the way this mob stuff
usually ended.
No, Louie had made up his mind to watch his chance for a crack at the
jewels—and then a clean getaway.
He reached the private road leading to the Chinaman’s house, paused for
a moment to listen and reconnoiter, then stealthily struck into the
grounds. Five minutes later he had skirted the west wing and was peering
up through the shrubbery at the lighted windows of Colonel Knight’s
apartment. Their location had been sketched for him by Monte.
“So that’s where the old devil is!” thought Louie. “Let’s just have a
look-see!”
He climbed into a pepper tree—the same from which Monte and the “Kid” had
seen Knight—and stared into the room. It was lighted, but there was no
one in sight. Then, through a vista of open doors, he saw the man whom
he had been sent to watch, walking slowly about with his hands clasped
behind him, a cigar between his lips.
“Had a good supper, and now he’s enjoying a smoke!” Louie mumbled
enviously. “Well, that’s good enough for me, too! Let’s have a look at
that window!”
He slipped down from the tree and glanced about. At the corner of the
house was a galvanized iron can, evidently used for lawn clippings. Louie
lifted this cautiously and carried it over under the end window. Then he
climbed upon it, raising his head cautiously till he was standing just
beside the half-open window.
A silent inspection of the bars showed him that they were all securely
fastened, with one possible exception: the bottom bar seemed to be loose
in its niche. Louie climbed down, changed the can over to the opposite
side, and examined the opposite end. Sure enough, it showed a crumble of
concrete around the bolt which was supposed to hold it in place. With the
utmost caution, fearing that the loose bar might be connected with an
alarm system, the crook tested it.
A smile twisted his thin lips. It could be moved in and out of its niche.
A sound came from somewhere close at hand; and with the speed and silence
of a wolf Louie Martin leaped to the ground, caught up the can, and
replaced it where he had found it. Next instant he was hidden in a clump
of flowering shrubs.
From this position he could see the top of a flight of steps leading down
to the basement of the house of Ah Wing. He stood listening and watching,
and presently he heard a door open and close, followed by steps ascending
the stairs. Then some one came up out of the basement, and he saw the
figure of a tall Chinaman walking deliberately toward the bush in which
he was hiding. Louie reached under his coat for his pistol—
Ah Wing turned, and Louie saw that he was following a graveled path. And
he was carrying something in one hand—a contrivance of twisted wires,
like an iron basket.
As Ah Wing disappeared into the mist, Louie made up his mind. Tonight,
after Knight had gone to bed, he would strike: he was not to be relieved
till two o’clock, and that would give him time to put through his coup.
But now he meant to follow Ah Wing. He needed all the information he
could secure about the master of this silent house.
The Chinaman had disappeared into the eddying mist, but Louie struck into
the path and soon came within hearing of the crisp footsteps. Ah Wing
reached the edge of the grounds and crossed over into a marshy field.
Instinctively, the crook worked closer to the man he was shadowing. There
was something oddly menacing about this night, with its mist and its
fitful, salt-laden wind.
Suddenly through the swirling fog there appeared a light, which seemed to
be suspended ten feet or so above the ground. It was moving slowly along
in front of them—a murky light, like a blood-red mist.
Then Louie saw that it was the light suspended from the mast of a boat,
and that the boat itself was moving slowly along before them, almost
hidden by the banks of the canal. The tide must be out, he thought.
Ah Wing swung on through the night, and presently the man following him
made out the silhouette of a building, perched above the canal. Louie
slunk cautiously forward and saw that the boat, whose lantern he had
previously observed, was making fast at that wharf.
Ah Wing leaped lightly to the sunken deck and disappeared down the
companionway. Before Louie could decide what he was to do, the Chinaman
reappeared and climbed back to the wharf. Louie had just time to slip
into the shelter of a group of piling when the Chinaman passed the corner
of the building.
And in his hand was another of the wire contrivances, filled with
squirming, squeaking rats!
The white man felt his stomach doing queer antics. He had heard of
Chinamen eating rats. Was that what this fellow was up to? What else
could he want with them?
Ah Wing walked swiftly, and the man behind kept as close as he dared.
Again they entered the grounds surrounding the big house, and the
Oriental crossed to the basement stairs and went down. Louie paused in
the bushes.
“I’m going to gamble,” he whispered suddenly to himself. “I’ll just sneak
down those steps, and if he tries to come out before I can duck, I’ll
bean him! I want to know what he’s up to!”
Stealthily, he approached the steps. All that he could see was a murky
hole, into which the cement stairs disappeared. A step at a time he made
his way down—
And then he paused, holding himself bent forward, rigid as a man of
stone. From beyond the door which opened out of this pit came a strange
sound, the like of which he had never before heard. It was like a jet of
steam, or like sand sifting into a tin pail from a considerable height.
Then came another sound—the sing-song voice of the Chinaman, crooning
something in a rhythmic chant. Louie could not understand the words, but
there was a swing and lilt to the thing that had a curious effect on him:
_he felt as if he were being rocked to sleep_.
He threw off this mood with a start. There had come another sound—the
squealing of many rats. And there was a grating noise, as if a heavy
body were dragging itself about the floor. The rat chorus swelled. The
creatures evidently had been turned loose, and were racing about the
floor in an agony of terror.
The chorus thinned. Something was happening to them. Presently the last
of the rats emitted one long, agonized squeal, and was still.
Louie Martin made his way out of the cellarway and hurried dizzily back
to the shelter of the bushes. He didn’t know what had been happening
behind that horrible door, but he knew that it was something which turned
his flesh to ice. A strange smell had come to him from under the door—
Louie noted with relief that the lights in Colonel Knight’s rooms had
been snapped off. That meant that the Colonel had gone to bed. Soon he
would be sleeping, and then Louie could put his plan into execution—that
would enable him to forget this baffling but vaguely horrible experience.
Somehow, he felt as if great unseen creatures were flying about him,
striking at him with black, featherless wings. The air seemed to be in
motion.
He caught himself firmly.
“Got to cut it out!” he mumbled under his breath. “Getting dippy! Likely
to bite somebody! Got to think about something else!”
He began to think about the jewels; and then his mind shifted, and he
was thinking of the woman from whom he and his companions had stolen the
pendant. She had been called “Mother of the Friendless.” The jewels had
been given to her by a rich patron, to assist in the work of providing
for the many who were dependent on her for charity.
The wolves had done a clever bit of work that time. They had caught the
jewels while they were in process of transfer from the original owner to
the old woman—
Another tangent. Louie was thinking with cold amusement of the fate of
Madam Celia, the “Mother of the Friendless.” Luck had turned against
her, with the loss of the jewels. Others who had helped her in her
earlier years had turned away after that—as if the old woman had suffered
contamination by accepting this gift, bequeathed by a certain rather
notorious beauty whose affairs had upset thrones and dynasties.
Yes, a very good joke on the old woman. And she had died in abject
poverty. That was the way that sort of thing went, Louie realized. One
was really a fool to do anything for anyone but one’s self.
A sound came through the half-open window of Colonel Knight’s suite—and
again Louie Martin grinned. The master crook, who had stolen the jewels
from the “Mother of the Friendless,” was now about to pass them on—only
he didn’t know it!
Louie brought the metal barrel over under the window and set it, bottom
up, so as to form a secure means of approach to the room beyond. He had
thrown off his depression now. But he must work fast.
Cautiously, he stepped upon the barrel and raised his hands to the bottom
bar. Twisting it slowly and at the same time pulling, he drew both bar
and bolts from their sockets and tossed them to the ground. He wanted to
laugh! So this was the wisdom of a Chinaman? He might have known!
There was a stone coping a couple of feet above the top of the thing on
which he stood. Louie rested his foot on this coping and laid his hands
on the sill. Lightly he drew himself up against the face of the wall.
He paused to listen. The man within was breathing heavily and regularly.
Louie thrust his head through the opening—nothing in sight to alarm him.
Then, with a quick spring, he threw his weight upon the sill and was
halfway through the window—
Half-way, but no farther; for as his weight descended fully upon the
sill, the upper sash crashed down like the lever of a great engine. The
thief cried out once, a hideous, choking cry that echoed through the room
and on into the house of Ah Wing.
Then he was silent, drooping there like one who has been broken on the
wheel. Blood dripped from his mouth and nostrils, and he had ceased to
breathe. He was caught like a huge rat in a trap!
_CHAPTER SEVEN_
THE DEAD MAN SPEAKS
Somewhere beyond the mist-enshrouded marshes the whistle of a grain ship
boomed, to be answered a moment later by the metallic scream of a siren.
Vague and mysterious filaments of sound drifted in with the eddying night
wind.
“Damn such a country!” the “Kid” snarled, as he turned from the door and
tramped back into the house. “How long you going to keep us rusticating
out here, Chief? I’m fed up on nature!”
Monte Jerome scowled at his assistant.
“We’re going to stay here till we get what we came for!” he replied. “If
Martin doesn’t show up by morning, we got to decide what he’s up to!”
An uncanny silence gripped the four Wolves. Nearly twenty-four hours had
passed since Louie Martin went on duty, and nothing had been heard from
him. An uncomfortable idea was developing in the minds of the various
members of the “mob.”
Suddenly the “Kid” voiced this general suspicion. With a snarl, he
pointed accusingly at Monte.
“Fact is, Louie ain’t coming back, Chief, and you know it! He’s grabbed
something—maybe the sparklers—and he’s beat it. Don’t blame him a damn
bit, neither. We’re going to set around here with our mouths open till
the dicks get after us. But Louie ain’t coming back, and you just put
that down in your note-book!”
Monte turned toward the speaker.
“Is that your opinion, you lump-head? Well, keep it till I ask you for
it. The trouble with you is you’ve been thinking of cutting loose,
yourself. Louie will show up all right. Don’t you worry about him.”
“Hell of a lot you know about it!” mumbled the “Kid” angrily.
Monte walked slowly toward him, his eyes blazing.
“Trying to start something?” he demanded. “If you are—”
The Strangler intervened at this critical moment. He and the “Kid” had
had a disagreement earlier in the evening when the latter moved into
the room left vacant by Louie Martin’s unexplained absence. This was a
ground-floor room with an abundance of light and sun, and the “Kid,” with
a loose-lipped grin, announced that his doctor had told him he ought to
have it. The Strangler had protested; but the “Kid” had possession, and
made it plain that he meant to hang on.
Now the Strangler sided maliciously with Monte.
“You’re always belly-aching about something, Kid,” he declared. “You
better lay off and give us a rest. The Chief knows what he is doing!”
Monte paused, thankful for this opportune intervention. He had made
up his mind to square account with the “Kid” just as soon as the real
business which held them together was finished, but a show-down now would
be dangerous to the success of the larger affair.
“Let’s cut it all out, boys!” he suggested pacifically. “I’ll go on duty
up to two o’clock. Doc, you set the alarm. You’ll relieve me. I’ll try to
find out something—that Chink may have grabbed Louie. We ought to know
what has happened before we pull anything!”
He nodded to the others and left the house. The three crooks settled
down to their usual evening: the “Kid” got out a deck of cards and began
to play a one-handed game of his own devising; Billy the Strangler drew
his chair over in front of the fireplace and adjusted his feet on the
mantle—in this position he would smoke and stare into the coals till he
grew sleepy—and “Doc” took from the table an illustrated magazine and
turned to the serial he was reading. Occasionally he glanced covertly at
one of his companions: “Doc” sensed the coming battle between these two
gunmen, and had no intention of being caught within the firing lines.
The wind freshened, and they could hear it wailing around the house and
through the upper windows. The window in the “Kid’s” room rattled and
banged, and he looked abstractedly up.
“Hell of a night!” he mumbled. “Sounds like all the dead men in this neck
of the woods was hanging around outside, wheezing to be took in by the
fire! Listen to that window rattle!”
The Strangler smoked on imperturbably.
From somewhere in the house above there came a sound—low and uncertain at
first, then rising to a sort of scream. The “Kid” threw down his cards
and staggered to his feet. The Strangler hauled his long legs down from
the mantle and reached under his coat for the handle of his automatic.
“Doc” turned pale—he was too sophisticated to be superstitious, but this
unearthly cry was a fact rather than a theory.
“What the devil was that?” the “Kid” demanded hoarsely. “Say, if that was
one of them birds—”
“That must have been it!” “Doc” decided aloud. “A night heron, blown
against the chimney! What a night to be out in!”
He shivered and picked up his magazine, but the zest had gone out of his
reading. From the corners of his eyes he observed that the “Kid” was
gathering up his cards, and that Billy had not again elevated his feet to
the mantle.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going to _my_ room,” the “Kid” drawled presently,
emphasizing the possessive pronoun to tantalize the Strangler. “Kind of
feel like a little snooze would take the wrinkles out of my brains. This
place sure does give me the willies!”
He slouched into the hall communicating with the back rooms—a kitchen and
his bedroom—and they heard him shuffling through the darkness. Following
a moment of silence, his voice sounded in a steady mumble. Then it was
raised in expostulation.
“Who the hell has been fooling with my light? It won’t turn on!”
Another brief interval of silence, then a bellow of rage and fear from
the man in the back bedroom.
“Who’s there? Go way from me! Damn—”
They leaped up at the sound of the “Kid’s” stumbling gallop. He burst
into the room, and they saw that his face was the color of ashes.
“For God’s sake, who’s in that room—my room?” he cried, staring at them
through straining, glassy eyes. “Come on, you fellows! Here, I’ll take a
flashlight—the globe must be burned out!”
He snatched up an electric torch and led the way back through the hall,
the Strangler at his shoulder, “Doc” some distance behind.
“Someone let out a groan when I went inside the door,” the “Kid” was
explaining. “And then he says right in my ear, ‘This ain’t your room,
Kid!’ Listen!”
They were within five feet of the bedroom door when the “Kid” paused and
held up a trembling hand. He was directing the light of the torch upon
the doorway. And at that moment there came from it a groan, followed by a
muttered protest.
“_My room!_” a voice within the room said distinctly.
“Holy Mother!” whispered the Strangler. “That sounds like Louie! He must
be hurt!”
“How in hell would he get in there?” protested the “Kid.” “Come on—let’s
see!”
They stepped inside the room, and the ray of the flashlight began to
circle it. Suddenly the circling beam came to a stop.
“In the bed!” gasped the “Kid.” “He’s there, covered up!”
Slowly and unwillingly, an inch at a time as if drawn by some
irresistible force, the three Wolves crossed the room and approached the
bed. They could all see the huddled form lying there, covered even to
the face. There was something about it—an utter absence of motion—that
terrified them. But they could not turn back.
The “Kid” reached the bedside and for a long moment stood glaring down.
Then, with shaking fingers, he caught the edge of the bedding and threw
it back.
In the concentrated light of the lantern, there stared up at them the
livid face of Louie Martin. His glazed eyes protruded, and there was
a trickle of blood running from his nostril to the left corner of his
mouth. And in his face was an expression of frozen horror which stopped
the hearts even of the hardened crooks who looked down in momentary
paralysis.
With a scream, the “Kid” dropped the lantern and turned, treading upon
the toes of the Strangler. Another scream sounded, high and shrill—it
came from the direction of the bed.
“Why can’t you let me rest?” a quavering voice protested. “This is my
room—”
They heard no more. The three swore and sobbed as they raced for the
front room. They slammed doors behind them, and brought up, shaking as if
in ague, directly under the big, brilliantly lighted chandelier.
“Somebody bumped him off—and he came back to tell us about it!” the “Kid”
whispered.
_CHAPTER EIGHT_
AH WING LISTENS IN
“He’s certainly good and dead!” Monte said, as he stood looking down at
the body of Louie Martin. “Whatever they did to him, it was a plenty!
But you boys must be a little bilious—you can see for yourselves that he
hasn’t been doing any talking for some time. What you heard was the wind,
blowing around the corners of the house!”
The “Kid” drew the back of his hand across his glistening forehead. He
was standing near the door.
“Don’t kid yourself, Chief!” he snarled. “We heard him talk—all of us
did! And there’s another thing: us being bilious wouldn’t account for
Louie Martin walking in on us here, and climbing into that bed!”
Monte was staring down at the dead man.
“You say you heard the windows back here rattling earlier in the
evening?” he demanded.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t they? The whole house was rattling!”
Monte nodded. He had his own ideas on this subject, but he didn’t intend
to spread them before his already demoralized followers.
“Well, the thing we’ve got to decide is what we’re going to do with him,”
he commented. “We’ve got to handle the whole business ourselves, and say
nothing. We can’t afford to have the dicks asking questions around here
just now!”
Tacitly, Monte’s three companions agreed, but there was in their pale
faces a question which none of them had the courage to voice. Monte
continued, apparently unconscious of their emotions.
“Billy,” he said, “you get the spade and dig a grave over close to the
fence. After we get him planted, we’ll move that pile of old bean poles
over the place. It’s kind of tough, but Louie is dead—and we got to look
out for ourselves!”
The Strangler went silently out into the dark. They heard him rummaging
for a spade, and presently the _clink_ of the latter implement came
industriously to them. The grave was finished by the time the first gray
light of dawn began to filter down around the cottage, and presently
the body of the dead crook, wrapped in a blanket, was lowered into it.
Then the dirt was shoveled back till the cavity would hold no more, and
the superfluous earth was scattered over the surface of the garden. The
shifting of a pile of bean poles finished the ceremony.
“I’ll trade rooms with you, Kid,” Monte said to the saturnine strong-arm
man—who for once looked rather cowed. “I never was afraid of a dead
man—just so that he was really dead. I guess you’re kind of soured on
that part of the house!”
“Soured is right,” mumbled the “Kid.” “Say, I wouldn’t sleep in there
if you was to give me all the sparklers in New York! Just let me get my
stuff out!”
As he went back toward the room from which the body had recently been
removed, the “Kid” saw the mocking glance of the Strangler fastened
upon him. Billy was enjoying his discomfiture. He went into the room
and turned on the light—the burned-out bulb had been replaced, so that
now he was able to see into all the corners. He began to gather up his
property, staring nervously about him the while.
Cautiously, he approached the closet, where he had stored his bathrobe
and an extra suit, a couple of pairs of shoes and a pearl gray hat. He
opened the door wide and stepped back. Nothing inside. Hastily he carted
the clothing out. Then he crossed over to the bureau and opened the
left-hand upper drawer, in which he had placed his jewelry—some rings and
tie pins.
The “Kid” drew the drawer fully open and stood looking down into it. Then
a startled exclamation escaped him, and he bent nearer, staring wide-eyed.
All of his possessions were there; but in addition he saw, close to the
back of the drawer, a morocco covered box of peculiar design. The “Kid”
had seen that box once before!
With trembling fingers he undid the clasp and opened the lid. He could
feel his heart pounding in the top of his head, and his throat seemed
to contract, so that he fought for breath. The Resurrection Pendant! A
single glance convinced him of that. But how had it come into this drawer?
The “Kid’s” mind deviated from the line of this natural inquiry. He could
forget that for the moment—the fact was that here it was. But there was
no reason why he should share this discovery with the other Wolves. This
supreme good fortune had come to him, not to them! He quickly shut the
lid of the case and slid the box into an inside pocket.
He removed his property to Monte’s room, hiding the jewel case under the
mattress. His blood had turned to liquid fire. He had that for which they
had all been searching—and it was his alone!...
Monte went on guard that evening, taking “Doc” with him: not that Monte
was afraid, but he realized that the battle had now entered its final
and decisive phase. And it was real war. Monte Jerome had no doubt that
Martin had, in some mysterious way, been done to death in the house of Ah
Wing.
“You boys better get to bed early,” he said. “Billy, you take the clock
and set it for half past one. You wake the Kid as soon as you get
up—we’ll stand double guard from now on!”
The “Kid” hardly heard Monte speaking. He wanted to examine the jewels
again, wanted to figure out just how he was going to make the break which
would free him from his comrades.
For a time, after the other two had departed, he sat around smoking and
cleaning out the barrel of his pistol, which the fogs of this marshy
neighborhood were corroding. He cleaned barrel and chamber and oiled the
action, then replaced the clip of cartridges and slipped the gun into a
side pocket.
“Well,” he mumbled, half aloud, “I guess I’ll be getting to bed. An’ I
hope to God there won’t be no voices around here tonight!”
The Strangler grunted, and the “Kid” slouched off up the stairs and into
the room that had been Monte’s. He closed the door carefully, crossed
over to the light, and then stood listening.
The night wind was stirring around the house, whistling and moaning down
the chimney; but the “Kid” had an antidote for fear tonight: he went
over to his bed and fumbled for the jewels. The touch of the smooth
leather-covered box started his heart to pounding.
He laid the box on the bed and opened it. The light was reflected into
his eyes from a thousand sharp facets, crimson and blue and white—but
perhaps the charm was wearing off: the stones did not look as wonderful
to him tonight as they had in that momentary view he had caught during
the afternoon.
“And that’s the bunch of sparklers men go dippy about!” the “Kid”
mumbled. “Hell, I wouldn’t give two bits for the whole bunch, if I
couldn’t sell ’em! There’s too many of ’em, and they don’t shine so
terrible much! I saw a big buck nigger on State Street once with a
solitaire on that would have made them look phoney—and it was glass! Oh,
well, I should worry. I ain’t going to wear ’em—I’m going to _sell_ ’em!
I’ll have to play safe—”
At the ghost of a sound from behind, the “Kid” whirled. He had left the
door closed, but now it was open—and the Strangler stood inside the room,
grinning.
“So, that was the game!” he cried. “You’re a slick one, Kid, but you
ain’t slick enough. I been watching you all evening. You ain’t yourself,
old timer. You’re getting nervous. But I don’t wonder! You grabbed the
sparklers, but how you done it I don’t know. And you was going to hold
’em out, was you? Well, well—”
The “Kid’s” lips jerked up into a wolfish smile, but he forced himself
to go slow. He needed to think this thing out. He knew the Wolves well
enough to be sure they would hold this affair against him, and sooner
or later would try to play even. No use to try to explain—they wouldn’t
understand.
The Strangler was watching him through chilly eyes. Casually, the Kid’s
hand stole toward his side pocket. Instantly the man standing before him
acted: with a bellow of rage he jerked out his own hand, which he had
been holding under his coat: swinging it up he fired, then struck at the
light globe with the smoking barrel.
To the “Kid” there came the sensation of suffocation and of darkness.
His own gun was out, but his enemy had disappeared—and he himself was
sprawled across the bed. That instant of falling had not registered in
his consciousness: he had been standing, and now he was down; that was
all he knew.
And he was fighting for breath—a great weight seemed to be crushing in
his chest. He raised his left hand and gropingly explored the front of
his shirt: it was already saturated, and from a hole to the left of his
breast bone more blood was coming in a pulsing current.
“The dirty dog!” muttered the “Kid” thickly, pulling himself erect by
grasping the foot of the bed. “He’s croaked me—”
Then suddenly the “Kid’s” whirling senses cleared. Billy the Strangler
had done for him; but he would send Billy on ahead, to tell St. Peter he
was coming! His yellow teeth came together. He felt something welling up
in his throat and spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Not—much—time—left!” he muttered.
He dropped to his knees and for a moment everything went blank. Then he
mastered himself, by a superhuman effort: and began to crawl stealthily
along toward the dimly-lighted panel of the door. The Strangler had run
out there after firing—now, undoubtedly, he was waiting till it should
be safe for him to come back for his booty!
Slowly, the dying crook dragged himself across to the door and out into
the hall. The training of a lifetime stood him in good stead now: he was
as soundless as a shadow. He reached the top of the stairs and paused,
leaning for a moment against the banisters—everything was going black
before him. Then he pulled himself together with a disregard for his own
suffering that in a better cause would have been heroic.
Inch by inch, he drew himself forward till he was sitting on the top step
of the stair. He peered down into the lighted rooms below. Ah! There he
was! The Strangler stood beyond the big chandelier in the front room, the
“Kid” could see him plainly through an open door. His face was smiling,
the crooked smile of a shark.
Resting his automatic across his bent knees, the “Kid” took steady aim at
the man who had done for him.
“A little higher than the pockets!” he told himself, repeating the old
gunman’s formula for a killing shot.
Next moment the pistol roared; and the man standing down there in the
light jerked up his hands and staggered backward. Greedily, the “Kid’s”
fast glazing eyes drank in every detail of the Strangler’s agony. He knew
what that look meant—
Billy the Strangler began to pivot on his heels, staring with blind eyes
into space.
“Where is he?” he cried. “Damn your soul and body—you—”
He pitched forward to his face. And the “Kid,” leaning peacefully back,
felt himself snatched up into a great red cloud that has descended out of
the roof upon him.
* * * * *
In an upper room in the house of Ah Wing, the Chinaman sat at an
instrument that resembled a telephone switchboard. There were on its
surface eight little globes, each with a plug socket beneath.
Ah Wing had an operator’s head-piece in position, and he seemed to be
listening attentively to something that came to him over the wires.
There had been voices, loud and angry. He heard the Strangler denouncing
the “Kid.” Then came the shot—and silence.
Ah Wing waited an appreciable time, then shifted the plug from socket
to socket. Not a sound from any of the rooms in the distant cottage. He
returned the plug to its central position and waited.
Presently another shot sounded, and a scream. He heard the Strangler
curse his enemy.
Without a word, Ah Wing removed the head-piece and glanced up at a chart
fastened to the wall before him. It contained the names of five men,
against one of which a black cross had been inscribed.
Now he picked up a pencil and filled in two additional crosses.
There were but two of the Wolves left!
_This Fascinating Story Has An Amazing Climax. It Will Be Concluded in
the Next Issue of WEIRD TALES. Tell Your Newsdealer To Reserve Your
Copy._
Snatched from the Grave, Woman Tells of Death
A weird adventure befell Mrs. Rafaela Mercurio, an Omaha woman who, after
apparently dying, awoke in the land of the living instead of the spirit
world. After her physician had pronounced her dead, her life was restored
by an injection of adrenalin, administered by Dr. W. A. Gerrie.
To all outward appearance, she was quite dead. There was no indication of
breathing or heart action. Prayers for the dead were started in the bed
chamber where her body lay.
Then Dr. Gerrie injected the gland extract in her heart, and after
several days she showed signs of returning life. Upon regaining
consciousness, she was confused and puzzled, uncertain, it seemed,
whether she was alive or dead. Later she described her strange experience.
“I could feel death pulling me,” she said. “I was slipping. I tried to
find something to hold to, but could not. I felt far away and alone, yet
it seemed there was something I must do before I slipped entirely away.
“I had just a few minutes. I must straighten out in bed. I must cross
my hands on my breast. I must smile. My children must know that I died
in peace. From far away there seemed to be people around me. But their
voices grew more distant.
“Then there seemed to come to me the comforting words of a priest. They
added to my peace and content. I was ready for death. I smiled, I think.
I know I wanted to. It was the last thing I remember.”
And then, days after the first injection of adrenalin, the “dead” woman
regained consciousness. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.
“I shall never forget that hour,” she said. “I heard the clock strike
four times—and I realized I was a living person in a living world.”
_A Fanciful Novel of the Red Desert Complete In This Issue_
DESERT MADNESS
_By_ HAROLD FREEMAN MINERS
_CHAPTER ONE_
THE GIRL AND THE HANDCUFFS
[Illustration]
For a long moment the man surveyed with tired eyes the queer cleft in the
canon wall and the beaten trail that led into it.
Finally he addressed the nearest of his two burros in a listless, half
humorous voice:
“Well, Archibald, it looks interesting—what say we try it?”
Archibald made no reply. Archibald was asleep. Immediately upon the
halting of the little cavalcade the burro had sunk into a state of
dejection more apathetic than usual and had promptly gone to sleep. In
fact, it is doubtful if Archibald had not been asleep the greater part of
the afternoon.
“You don’t care, eh, Archibald? Well, for that matter, neither do I. But
let’s consider this matter, old timer. For the last hundred years, more
or less, we’ve been strolling around this accursed desert, and we have
made the acquaintance of a few cottontail rabbits, one or two coyotes,
and a rattlesnake. The rabbits showed their distaste for our society
by running away; the coyotes did nothing but deride us with mournful
voices; the rattlesnake certainly showed no desire to be friendly. We’ve
met no human being; we’ve discovered no fabulously rich gold mine; we’ve
had our fill of scenery.
“There lies a well-beaten trail, disappearing into the face of solid
rock. At its end lies mystery, adventure. Possibly romance. Also,
possibly, cattle rustlers, who may greet us with anything but enthusiasm.
In which case we’ll throw in our lot with them, and I’ll ride you across
the desert to eternal glory. The idea intrigues me, Archibald. I think we
shall investigate.”
At this moment an over-industrious flea must have launched a determined
attack on one of the few vulnerable parts of Archibald’s anatomy, for he
suddenly nodded his head vigorously.
“Ah, you agree with me? I knew you would. We will now follow the trail to
adventure—or a sheep herder’s camp. Let’s go!”
Percy, the second burro, was with difficulty herded into the narrow
trail. Archibald followed him with great reluctance, but finally the man
succeeded in driving his tiny pack train into concerted action, and they
slowly trudged up the narrow defile.
Stanley Ross had been exiled to the desert country because certain
eminent New York doctors had come to the conclusion that he had
contracted a disease which yields itself to treatment most readily in the
dry desert uplands.
Ross had not been breathing the dry air of the desert for a month before
he was as healthy as a prize fighter. The fact was that Stanley Ross
had over-indulged in a certain pastime known as “reading the tape,” and
Nature had gone on a strike. The New York doctors had provided the first
step toward recovery; the desert had done the rest.
But there had been another hurt that had not healed so readily—or at
least Ross had so convinced himself. Stanley Ross fondly believed that he
was heart-broken. The cause was a blonde bit of New York femininity who
had fancied Ross for a while, but in the end had fancied the millions of
an oil man more.
So he had stayed on in the West. A healthy restlessness had driven him
out to explore the uncharted wastes of the vast Red Desert, and the ever
changing wonders of rock, and sand, and sky, of sagebrush and cactus, of
sparkling night-heavens had beckoned him on. For months now he had been
wandering up and down this immeasurable wonderland, obeying every vagary
of mind, exploring every nook and cranny that caught his itinerant fancy,
his only companions the two burros which he had so whimsically named.
Mirages had beckoned. Colors so bizarre that no artist had dared to give
them to canvas had soothed his soul. Grotesqueries of rock and sand and
canon had intrigued him.
Ross still believed that the old hurt was still present in his bosom.
Actually he had been having a capital time for months, and the girl no
longer mattered. However, he had allowed himself gradually to fall into
a state of whimsical melancholy. What he needed was adventure. He was
bored, but had he known what lay at the end of the thin twisting trail
before him his boredom might not have been so acute.
The rock defile, through which the trail led, was narrow, and the walls
were nearly perpendicular. The passage was twisting, but a tiny trickle
of water gave promise of a broader canon farther up. The trail, while
very narrow, was well-defined and worn deep. It looked as though it had
been in constant use for years.
Ross had progressed along this strange passage for about a quarter mile
when his attention was suddenly arrested by something on the canon wall.
Involuntarily, he stopped. Instantly the burros halted as though their
motive power was automatically turned off whenever their master stopped
walking.
“Great Horned Toads!” ejaculated Ross in a low voice. “Archibald, do you
see what I see, or has the sun gone to my head? Has the world slipped
back three centuries, or is it actually nineteen-twenty-three? ’Tain’t
possible, Archibald, but nevertheless I see what I see!”
There, not thirty feet distant, was a girl—a pretty girl—and she was
shackled to four great iron rings, fastened in the canon wall, by means
of handcuffs, ankle fetters, and four heavy chains!
_CHAPTER TWO_
BROKEN SHACKLES AND A MYSTERY
Ross stood spellbound. He could not believe his own eyes.
That he should meet a human being in this vast waste of rock and sand and
cactus was possible. That he should find a girl chained to a rock, like a
felon of the black ages, was nothing short of incredible.
There was no denying the girl’s existence, however. She was there, and
she was in need of help.
His incredulity shattered, Ross was beside the girl in a bound. Even a
cursory glance showed her to be undeniably pretty, and it also showed her
to be quite as undeniably in a state of total exhaustion.
At Ross’s approach, the girl raised her head with difficulty. Her eyes
opened and she smiled slowly. Then her whole body suddenly fell forward
against the chains that held her. She had fainted.
No stranger situation could be imagined than the finding of a beautiful
girl chained to a rock in the midst of the great Red Desert. This,
however, was a matter for future consideration. The girl needed immediate
attention, and Ross’s first thought was to release her.
When he examined her shackles Ross realized that release was not going to
be easy. The four rings to which the chains were fastened were secured to
the canon wall by means of heavy iron staples driven deep into fissures
in the rock. A test of strength showed that nothing short of a charge of
dynamite would ever loosen them.
The chains were comparatively heavy and well forged. A file was the only
solution—and Ross did not possess a file.
Not till he examined the handcuffs did he see any hope of releasing
the girl. These were not of the ordinary type. They were not the steel
manacles of the sort used today, but were about two inches wide, heavy in
construction and made of cast iron. The locking device was old-fashioned.
They were a type of handcuff that had been obsolete for nearly three
quarters of a century.
Having satisfied himself that they were really made of cast iron, Ross
at once realized that it would be a comparatively easy task to free the
girl. Securing a small rock for a hammer, he braced the girl back against
the canon wall and held her wrist against the rock. A few well directed
blows with the improvised hammer easily cracked the rusty cast iron and
the handcuff fell away in two pieces.
The girl’s wrist had been freed without more than slightly bruising the
skin. The second handcuff was broken quite as easily. Ross gently lowered
the girl to the ground.
Releasing her ankles was more difficult. The anklets were of heavier
construction and harder to break without injuring the girl. However, by
placing a rock under the anklet and being careful, Ross finally managed
to shatter the cast iron without more than bruising the girl’s slender
ankles.
In an instant he had jerked the pack from one of the burros and spread
his blanket roll out on the ground. Picking up the unconscious girl, he
placed her on the blankets and improvised a pillow from his coat.
Almost opposite where the girl had been chained the tiny trickle of water
had formed a miniature pool in the rocks. Seizing a tin cup from his camp
outfit, Ross hurried to this pool, scooped up a cup of water, and in an
instant was kneeling at the girl’s side.
Dipping his fingers in the water, he flicked it across her face, then
carefully bathed her forehead, and then set to chafing her wrists.
It was fully ten minutes before the girl showed any evidence of returning
consciousness. Then her eyelids began to flutter. Finally she sighed
deeply, and her eyes slowly opened.
Stanley Ross thought he had never seen such a look of abject terror as
now appeared in the girl’s eyes. It was as though she had just awakened
from a terrible dream and was still laboring under its terrorizing
influence. Such a look might have appeared in the eyes of a slave girl
when Nero ruled in Rome.
For a moment, consciousness battled with that nightmare that had been
seething through the girl’s brain and finally won. Her eyes opened wide.
A half smile slowly crossed her face. Whatever might have inspired her
terror, the girl evidently recognized in Ross a friend.
Her lips, dry and parched, moved with difficulty, but Ross saw that they
framed the word “Water!”
Lifting her head, he dampened the girl’s lips from the cup and then
allowed her to drink her fill. But weakness still held sway over her
body, and she sank back on the blankets, exhausted. Her eyes closed again.
“Don’t try to talk,” advised Ross. “You just lie there and rest until I
fix something for you. Then you can tell me about this thing.”
For once in his life, Ross was glad that he had taken another man’s
advice. When he had started his desert pilgrimage an old prospector
had advised him to include a few cans of soup in his outfit. Ross had
demurred, seeing no use in packing superfluous weight, but the old desert
rat had insisted.
Ross had included the soup. So far, he had had no use for it, but now it
was to show its worth.
Collecting a few dry sticks from the stubby willows that grew around the
pool, Ross soon had a tiny fire going. Opening a can of soup, he heated
it over the fire and carried a cup of it to the girl.
“Oh, that’s so good!” she murmured after she had drained the cup. “Thank
you.”
“Do you feel like talking?” asked Ross.
For a moment the girl regarded him with frank eyes. Then she shook her
head wearily.
“Not—not just yet—please. I’m—so—tired.” She sank back onto the blankets.
Realizing that, for the present, rest was the most important thing for
her, Ross covered the girl with a blanket and set about his camp duties.
He finished unpacking his burros and turned them loose to pick at the
scanty tufts of grass that grew along the seeping stream. This done, he
set about preparing his own meal.
It was already dusk, and by the time he had cooked and eaten his supper
darkness had settled down over the little canon. Washing his few dishes
in the pool, Ross set them aside and turned his attention to finding
enough firewood to keep the fire going.
In the darkness this was somewhat of a task, and Ross was absent from the
camp for some little time. When he returned he saw that his strange guest
had evidently fallen asleep.
Ross threw some wood on the fire and sat down with his back against a
rock. Filling his pipe, he lighted it and leaned back to contemplate the
events of the afternoon and evening.
His first mental reaction on finding the girl had been one of intense
rage that any one, no matter what the cause or conditions, could be so
utterly inhuman as to perpetrate such an act. He was still angry now, but
he had cooled off to the extent that he could consider the affair calmly.
There seemed to be no off-hand explanation whatever. As far as Ross knew,
there was no human habitation in all this desert waste, yet this trail up
the little canon had been used frequently and recently, so somewhere up
the winding trail must lie a solution to the mystery. But what it could
be, or whether he could ever solve it, Ross could not imagine.
The whole affair was grotesque, bizarre. Why any one should chain a young
girl to a rock wall in the midst of a heat-scorched desert was utterly
incomprehensible. The girl was not gross or criminal-looking. On the
contrary, she was pretty, delicate, and obviously refined. Her clothes
bespoke a far different environment. How any one could be so inhuman as
to subject her to such treatment was unfathomable.
Sitting there, smoking and watching the girl, mulling the strangeness of
the affair over in his mind, Ross could offer himself no explanation. The
only thing to do, apparently, was to wait for the girl to awaken and
then wait for her to talk.
At any rate, the adventure which he had craved seemed to be at hand.
Where it would lead him he had no idea.
The fire gradually burned low. The girl slept on. Ross removed the pipe
from his mouth. His head nodded. In half an hour the campfire had wasted
to an ember.
The man’s head had sunk forward onto his breast; his body had relaxed
comfortably against its support. He, too, was asleep.
Hours crept by....
With a start, Ross awoke. The first faint glow of dawn was creeping down
into the little canon. It was morning.
Sheepishly, Ross rubbed his eyes, aware that he had allowed the healthy
fatigue of a day in the desert to conquer his senses and bring sleep when
he had intended to watch throughout the night.
Gradually the events of the evening before came back to him, and he
looked across to where he had wrapped the girl in his blankets. The bed
was empty!
_The girl was gone!_
_CHAPTER THREE_
ADVENTURE WITH A VENGEANCE
In an instant Ross was on his feet, the sleep fog automatically cleared
from his brain.
One glance was enough. The dawn was far enough advanced so that he could
see both up and down the canon. It was patent that the girl had vanished
during the darkness.
The whole affair was so utterly impossible, so unreal, so like an Arabian
Nights adventure, that Ross was almost prone to believe that it had been
merely a dream, a desert hallucination. Not until his eyes again sought
the canon wall did he convince himself that he had not been laboring
under some mental aberration.
There could be no denying his eyes, though. There were the four heavy
chains fastened to the canon wall, and there were the four broken
shackles, mute evidence that he had stumbled onto a situation as exotic
as one of the desert’s own mirages.
No, there could be no question that the girl had actually existed. Nor
could there be any question that she had disappeared. The only living
thing in sight was Archibald, who stood with head bowed over the dead
embers of last night’s fire in his usual state of ignoble dejection.
At first thought it seemed impossible that the girl could have left camp,
unaided, and it seemed quite as certain that no one could have taken her
away by force, without rousing Ross.
As he considered it, however, Ross realized that exhaustion would come
quickly to one chained to the rock and exposed to the sun without food or
water. Recuperation would probably come quite as quickly. The girl had
had both water and nourishment the evening before, and it would have been
quite possible for her to have gained sufficient strength to leave, had
she so chosen. There seemed to be no other explanation.
“Well, Archibald,” said Ross, falling into his whimsical habit of
addressing the burro, “when I started this trip I thought that you
and Percy were the only asses in the party. Now I am convinced there
are three of us. Here I have just been craving adventure for months.
Yesterday I blundered right onto the craziest kind of a mystery, and
then I go to sleep and let the whole thing get away from me! Fools can’t
think, but I suppose they’ve got to eat,” he finished to himself.
He set about preparing his breakfast, meanwhile pondering the affair. The
more he pondered the more mysterious it became.
Breakfast finished, he washed his dishes and then stepped over to gather
up his bed-roll. Instantly he stopped short. There before him, scratched
in the level sand of the canon floor, was a message:
“_Please go away. There is only great danger if you investigate
further._”
There could be no denying the sincerity of that message. Coupled with the
silent testimony of the inhuman shackles, it meant that the girl, whoever
she might be, was in real peril.
Regaining her strength, she had quietly slipped away in the night, but
before going she had left behind a warning to the man who had released
her. It was evident that she did not wish to draw a stranger into a
danger which she considered hers alone.
The warning, however, reacted on Ross like a red rag on a bull. It was
a challenge to his manhood, to his thirst for adventure. Somewhere up
that narrow canon was mystery; and somewhere, too, was a girl in unknown
danger, a girl who patently enough needed assistance and a friend.
It took but a few minutes to round up the burros and rope on the packs.
“We will now proceed to rescue the fair maiden.”
“Stick ’em up, an’ do it quick!”
Ross whirled at the sound of the gruff voice—and found himself looking
squarely into the muzzle of an ugly six-shooter. Behind it, was the most
villainous-looking countenance Ross had ever seen.
“Come on! H’ist ’em up!” again jerked out the owner of the gun.
The situation was too unreal to be taken seriously.
“Ah, Archibald, the plot thickens! First we meet Beauty; now we meet
the Beast. Point that gun the other way, my friend. It might go off and
frighten my long-eared friend here. He’s delicate, and I don’t like to
have his nerves shocked.”
“H’ist them mits before I drill ya!”
Ross felt the muzzle of the gun jammed into his ribs, and a practised
hand quickly searched his body. His automatic, carried for the sole
purpose of exterminating rattlesnakes, was transferred to the other’s
pocket.
The vicious attitude of the gunman was far too real to be taken lightly.
There was no doubt that he meant business.
“Ya can let ’em down now,” said the gunman, stopping back.
Ross turned and surveyed his captor.
“If you don’t mind telling me,” he asked coldly, “to whom am I indebted
for this early morning call?”
“Stow the flip gab. All I know is tha big boss said to bring ya in, an’
I’m bringin’ ya.”
“Then I’m to understand that I’m a captive?”
“Understan’ anythin’ ya please. Now git travelin’.”
Resistance was hopeless. His air of reckless bravado gone, boiling
inwardly at the indignity forced upon him, Ross swung and trudged off up
the canon trail.
For perhaps a quarter of a mile the narrow canon cleaved straight through
the rock. Then it suddenly began a series of intricate turns, as though
it had attempted a passage and had been baffled and forced to take a new
direction about every fifty feet.
For a while, Ross stalked on without speaking. Suddenly he turned his
head and spoke.
“Just where are you taking me, and who is the ‘big boss’?”
“Never mind askin’ dam’ fool questions. Keep movin’!”
After another quarter mile of sharp turns, the canon suddenly broadened,
and Ross found himself looking out into a basin bounded on all sides by
high, perpendicular rock walls, smooth and straight.
The basin was oval in shape, and near the center was a group of ’dobe
buildings, five in number. Toward these the captor directed their
progress.
As he advanced, Ross looked keenly for signs of life, but though he
sought every possible nook and cranny with his gaze, he could see neither
man nor beast. The place seemed to be absolutely deserted.
At the first building, a small ’dobe structure that stood somewhat apart
from the others, Ross was ordered to halt. Opening a heavy door, the man
motioned with his gun for him to enter. Ross stepped over the threshold,
and instantly the door clanged shut behind him.
He heard the heavy bolt drop into place. Then he heard his captor walking
away.
Then, for the first time, it dawned on Ross that he was actually a
prisoner, and that he had been captured with some definite object in view.
The room in which he found himself was about twelve feet square. The
walls were of ’dobe; the floor was of the same material, hard packed and
smooth. There were two small windows, but both were heavily protected
with thick iron bars, set deep in the hard-packed ’dobe. The furniture
consisted of a crude table and chair.
A single test of strength showed Ross that he could never hope to open
the door. A crowbar or an axe would be necessary for that, and there
was no implement of any kind in the room. The walls were fully eighteen
inches thick. Under the fierce heat of the desert the ’dobe had grown as
hard as cement. Unless he received help from outside, there seemed to be
no possibility of escape.
Time passed. Finally he ceased his idle wandering about the room and sank
into the chair.
His pipe and tobacco still remained in his pocket. He took out his pipe,
lighted it, and fell to considering his strange predicament.
It seemed that ages had passed before he detected approaching footsteps.
The bolt was raised. The heavy door swung on its hinges. His captor stood
outside, gun in hand. Behind him was a Chinaman, carrying a tray on which
was food.
The Chinese entered the room, placed the tray on the table and arranged
the food. As he was performing this service, he said in a low whisper,
so low that his companion could not hear, “Missee say Wong flix good
dlinner.”’
“Come on, Chink, make it snappy!” snapped the man with the gun.
The door slammed. The bolt fell into place. Ross was alone again.
Dubiously, he surveyed the food. The words of the Chinese came back to
him, “Missee say Wong flix good dlinner.”
So the girl knew that he was a captive. Well, all he could do was wait.
But who was she? And what did his imprisonment mean?
In the meantime there was no reason for wasting a good dinner. Ross was
hungry, and in twenty minutes the last scrap of food had disappeared.
Settling back in his chair, he again filled his pipe and prepared to
await developments with as good grace as possible.
It was hours later that he heard footsteps nearing his prison.
_CHAPTER FOUR_
ROSS IS INVITED TO DINE
Ross heard a key in the lock, and a moment later the heavy door swung
open. It was the gunman again. He was evidently not mindful to take any
chances with his prisoner, for he again was holding his revolver ready.
“Come on out!” he barked, motioning with the gun for Ross to step out of
the room. “Tha big boss wants ya.”
“Oh, he does?” returned Ross. “Maybe I’ll find out now what all this is
about.”
“You’ll find out all right. Mebbe find out more’n ya want.”
“You know, I don’t think I’m going to like you at all. I shouldn’t be
surprised if I had serious trouble with you yet. But lead on!”
Ross’s persiflage was far from pleasing to the gunman. He glared
malevolently at Ross for a moment, as if half minded to inflict physical
punishment, finally thought better of it, and then jerked out, “I ain’t
leadin’; I’m followin’. Git movin’!”
Ross was conducted to the largest of the group of ’dobe buildings,
evidently used as a dwelling, and was ushered directly into a bedroom.
He had expected anything except what he now saw. The room was such as
might have been found in a brown-stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. The
floor was covered with a deep soft rug. There was a mahogany bed, with a
spotless white spread, and a dressing-table of the same wood. To one side
of the latter stood a full-length plate mirror.
“The big boss said ya was to shave, an’ then ya was ta dress fer dinner.
Yo’ll find all tha togs there on that bed.” The gunman directed Ross’s
attention to the bed with a flourish of his gun.
Ross looked. The garments on the bed comprised a complete evening
outfit, from studded shirt to patent-leather pumps.
He was surprised to find that the clothes fit him well. The pumps were a
trifle tight and the suit was a bit snug, but a half hour later, when he
surveyed himself in the long pier glass, he was well satisfied.
“All right, keeper, let’s be on our way. I’m curious,” he said.
His captor conducted him down the long veranda, and a moment later he was
ushered into a large room where a table was laid for dinner.
_CHAPTER FIVE_
A STRANGE DINNER
By this time Ross was prepared for almost anything, yet the room that he
now stepped into was even more astounding than the bedroom.
In the center stood a table arranged for four. It fairly sparkled with
glassware, silver and spotless linen. At one side of the room stood a
huge buffet. Its top was well covered with glasses, liquor shakers and
sundry bottles, the contents of which were obvious.
The occupants of the room chiefly held his attention, though. They were
three, two men and a woman. Here, at last, he was to know the meaning of
the strange events of the preceding twenty-four hours.
The two men were standing close together and had evidently been
conversing. Both were in faultless evening dress. The girl stood apart;
aloof, so it seemed. Despite her evening dress, Ross instantly recognized
her as the girl he had found in the canon.
One of the men was young and exceedingly well built. His wide, heavily
muscled shoulders suggested out-of-the-ordinary strength. His hair was
wiry and red; its color was amply reflected in his ruddy complexion. The
face was strong and would have been attractive but for one feature—the
eyes. The eyes were small, deep-set, and far too close together. They
might have been said to be piggish. The dull glint in them was not
reassuring. Ross knew at once that he did not like this man.
It was the second of the two men, however, who was really striking.
He was, in fact, an amazing figure. His stature was above the average
height, over six feet, and he was thin to emaciation. Ross thought he
had never seen so tall and yet so slender a man. He was so thin as to be
ludicrous, yet there seemed to be a remarkable whipcord strength about
him.
His face was narrow and as lean as his body. A thin, high nose divided
a pair of piercing black eyes. It was the eyes that struck instant
attention. Their everchanging lights fairly gleamed. They seemed to be
alive with a thousand fires.
The impression was instantly registered with Ross that here was a man who
was possessed of unusual personal power, or who was stark mad. Those eyes
could allow of no other conclusion.
As Ross was ushered into the room it was this strange individual who
instantly stepped forward.
“Ah, our guest has arrived,” he said. His voice was soft as velvet, yet
it carried an irritating quality that was thin-edged and biting, and
scarcely concealed. “Step right up, Mr. Waring; dinner will be served at
once. Wong, the wine.”
From somewhere the Chinese, Wong, had glided forth and, drawing out a
chair, indicated Ross’s place at the table. Immediately he had filled the
glasses with a sparkling liquid. Ross recognized it as champagne.
There was no chance to reply. In fact, Ross was too bewildered to think
of anything adequate to say. In a moment he would be himself again, but
just now his wits were all at cross purposes.
As the elderly man greeted Ross, the girl and younger man took their
places at the table as if they had only been waiting his arrival to
proceed with the meal. As Ross stepped forward, at the servant’s
indication, his host reached out and lifted the wine glass at his plate.
“We will drink to the health of our guest,” he said evenly.
Automatically, Ross lifted his glass. The others did likewise. For an
instant the four glasses were held aloft, the lights playing on their
sparkling depths. Then the elderly man turned to Ross with a rather
elaborate low bow and said in a voice that was like gray steel:
“Mr. Waring, allow us to drink to your most excellent good health——_for
tomorrow you hang_!”
The words were like an icy blast. Up to that moment the whole affair had
been rather ludicrous to Ross. He had realized that he was in danger at
times, but that this danger would involve the loss of his life he had not
for a moment imagined.
Now he realized that his very life was at stake; more than that, unless
he could find some way to extract himself from his predicament, that
he was sure to forfeit it. There could be no denying the import of the
toast. Ross did not know why, but he did know that this tall, lean
stranger with the mad eyes meant to kill him as sure as he stood there.
For a moment, the young New Yorker lost his complacency. He stood with
the glass poised in his hand, his brain whirling. But this was only for
a moment. In a second he had regained his poise. Raising the glass to his
lips, he drained it to the bottom and turned to his host.
“Thank you, sir,” he said carelessly, “for your kind wishes for my good
health. I hate to dispute you, but I _don’t_ believe you will hang me in
the morning. And my name is not Waring, either. It happens to be Ross.”
“As you will, Mr. Waring, as you will. Any name would do as well. And
I assure you I shall have the pleasure of hanging you in the morning.
Let me warn you, too, Mr. Waring, not to attempt anything. I want this
dinner peaceful. It is an engagement dinner,” turning with an exaggerated
bow to the girl, “the occasion of the betrothal of my dear niece to Mr.
Beebe here. I _know_ you will be interested in that, Mr. Waring. But
just to forestall any idea you might have of providing any unnecessary
entertainment I have stationed my friends, Mr. Garfin and Mr. Poole, at
the door with instructions to shoot if you get unruly. Now, let us eat.”
Ross glanced over his shoulder to find Garfin lounging in the door
by which he had entered, a malignant smile wrinkling his face. In an
opposite doorway lounged another individual fully as ugly looking as
Garfin. This was evidently Poole. Both had guns. It was obvious that for
the present no break for liberty was possible.
For the most part, that dinner was a nightmare to Ross. Afterward he
wondered how he had managed to get through it.
After the first effusion, the elderly man made no effort to include Ross
in the conversation. Glad of this respite, Ross attempted to collect his
wits and to form some estimate of his predicament and of the people with
whom he had to deal.
The elderly man carried on a continuous animated conversation, mostly
with the man whom he had designated as Beebe. Several times he addressed
himself to Ross, but always in such a manner that it was obvious no
answer was expected. A number of times he included the girl in his
conversation, but the only time she made reply was to answer a question,
and then it was merely to say, “No, Uncle Arthur.”
Once or twice Beebe addressed the elderly man as “Mr. Ward,” so Ross
concluded that his name was Arthur Ward. The girl’s identity he was not
able to learn, except that her first name was Virginia.
Beebe ignored Ross and by his attitude seemed to be currying favor with
Ward. As for the girl, she remained silent, her eyes downcast, palpably
holding herself aloof. Once or twice Ross caught a fleeting message from
her eyes. It seemed to him that she was in utter terror, yet in perfect
control of her nerves.
In those flashing telegrams from her eyes Ross was sure he caught a mute
appeal for help. If this was a betrothal dinner Ross felt sure that the
betrothal was without the consent of one of the parties concerned, and he
was determined then and there not only to effect his own escape but to
aid the girl as well.
The food was excellent and perfectly served by the Chinese, yet Ross
could not have told a single item, and he thought the dinner never would
end. The presence of Garfin and Poole was mute evidence that for the
present he could do nothing. When the meal finally came to an end and
Ward pushed back his chair, it brought a feeling of distinct relief to
the young man. Now at least was the beginning of the end.
“Now, Mr. Waring,” said Ward suavely, “we will repair to my study, where
I have a few things to say to you before we break up this very pleasant
little party. I hardly think my niece will care to accompany us.”
They rose from the table, and Ross was ushered into an adjoining room
which was even more striking in its way than either of the others he had
been in that evening.
A brisk fire burned on a wide hearth from above which looked down a
magnificent ram’s head. Other trophies of a similar nature adorned
the other walls. Interspersed with these were guns, Indian weapons,
horsehair lariats—in fact, every accoutrement and trophy of the old-time
West. It was a rather remarkable collection, one which under different
circumstances would have deeply interested Stanley Ross.
Instantly he knew where those curious antiquated shackles, which had
bound the girl, had come from. Here were several similar pairs.
Ross was directed to a chair in front of the fire. Ward took another,
facing him, while Beebe sat down on a wide bench on the far side of the
fire. Ross waited expectantly.
Ward offered his guest a cigar. Selecting one for himself, he clipped its
end very deliberately and lit it with aggravating leisure. Finally he
leaned back in his chair and gazed steadily at Ross with his mad eyes. A
tiny smile, cynical and cruel, crooked around his thin-lipped mouth.
“I could have had you killed at once, Mr. Waring,” he said deliberately,
his voice soft and well-modulated, yet biting, burning, “but I did not
choose to do that. Instead, I wanted to bring you here this evening so
that you could fully realize just what a serious thing it is, and how
useless it is to buck Arthur Ward. And then, too, I wanted my niece to
know that I am to be obeyed absolutely.”
“I suppose, Mr. Ward,” asked Ross, “that it would be quite useless to
tell you that my name is not Waring at all; that I do not even know
any one of that name, or that I have never seen your niece, until last
evening?”
“Quite useless, I can assure you, Mr. Waring. I am absolutely certain of
your identity. I do not make mistakes.
“Mr. Waring, I never forget an injury. I remember forever, and my one bad
trait is the fact that I always have revenge. I would have got you in the
end, Waring, anyway, but your fool stunt of following my niece here saved
me a lot of trouble. Waring, you should have known that of all people on
earth you would have the least chance of marrying my niece.
“Tonight you can have the extreme pleasure of reflecting that you will
hardly be dead before Virginia will be the wife of Beebe.”
“And suppose she refuses?” asked Ross.
“We are a hundred miles from anywhere, Waring. Things could happen that
would make Virginia glad to marry Beebe—or any one.
“One more thing, Waring, and then we will terminate this interview,”
Ward went on dispassionately. “I want you to know that this is only the
beginning. I shall not be satisfied until I have exterminated your entire
family. It may take me years, but I shall certainly have the pleasure of
killing your brother and your father. It does not pay to do injury to
Arthur Ward.
“You will have tonight to reflect on what might have been. In the morning
I shall hang you.
“That is all I have to say, and since it will be quite useless for you
to say anything you may as well return to your room. Mr. Garfin and Mr.
Poole will see that you have safe conduct.”
Ross knew that for the present he would have to submit. Resistance would
be useless just now. He was one against four. The odds were too great. He
could only wait, hoping that the night would bring opportunity.
However, before he went he could not resist a last display of
bravado—bravado which he did not by any means feel.
Rising from his seat, Ross bowed low to Ward.
“Good-night, Mr. Ward. Thank you for a most excellent dinner and a most
entertaining evening. And let me assure you that you will _not_ hang me
in the morning.”
Turning on his heel, Ross passed out of the room.
_CHAPTER SIX_
A FORLORN HOPE
When Ross stepped out into the darkness his first thought was that he
would make a dash for liberty. This hope died almost before it was born,
though, for he felt the muzzle of a revolver pressed close to his ribs
and Garfin’s rasping voice growled into his ear:
“Make just one move fer a break an’ I’ll plug ya. The boss says he’s
goin’ to hang ya in the morning, but I’d like to save him tha trouble.”
Ross knew that Garfin was not indulging in idle words. The gunman would
gladly kill him. Then, too, out in the shadows another form kept them
close company. He knew this was Poole and that should he succeed in
worsting Garfin his chance of escaping the second gunman’s bullets was
very remote. No, the time was not yet.
The three trudged back to Ross’s one-room prison, and it was only a
minute or two until the door had slammed on him, the bolt had fallen into
place and the lock snapped its vicious message.
He was once more a prisoner.
Ross sought in the darkness for the crude chair and threw himself down
into it. He knew that for the time being there was no chance of escape,
so he gave himself up momentarily to a contemplation of his plight.
Who was this strange girl whom he had rescued, only to have her vanish
into the night? Why had she not spoken tonight? Why had she given him no
hint of action? Who was Beebe, that he would accept a betrothal which was
obviously odious to the girl? And, lastly, who was Ward with his mad eyes?
Who was Waring, and what had he done to merit such malicious vengeance on
the part of Ward?
These and many other questions Ross asked himself, but he had no
satisfactory answer to any one of them. Only a jumble of baffling mystery
presented itself. His brain seethed with impossible solutions, but he had
to admit that actually he was completely at sea.
Only a few facts stood out which could be accepted as a basis on which to
work.
He, Ross, had been taken for another man, Waring by name. Ward evidently
hated Waring intensely and was determined to put him to death for a
wrong, either fancied or real. There could be no doubt, too, that Ward
was, in a degree, insane.
What part Beebe was playing Ross could not determine, beyond the facts
that he was in favor with Ward and that he wanted the girl and would take
her on whatever terms he could get her.
The girl was obviously in great peril. It could be seen that she hated
Beebe, but at the same time was powerless to resist any order of her
uncle. Ross could readily see that she was in a position where death
might well be preferable to what she was facing.
And, undeniably, there was the fact that he, Ross, was sure to meet death
in the morning unless he could devise some way out of his dilemma.
The night was far gone when he had finished considering these things.
It was then that a plan of action first suggested itself to him. As it
matured in his mind he realized that it was a forlorn hope; but his
circumstances were so utterly desperate that there seemed nothing to do
but give it a trial. He knew that its success would depend entirely on
the element of surprise.
Having once settled in his mind what he should do, Ross threw himself
down on the crude table and was soon sound asleep.
It was hardly daylight when he awoke, but he did not allow himself to
drop back to sleep again. He was going to be ready.
It was fully three hours later that he heard approaching footsteps.
Slipping quietly across the room, Ross flattened himself against the wall
beside the door and waited.
The footsteps drew nearer and nearer. A key grated in the lock. It
clicked. The bolt was raised. Slowly the door swung on its hinges.
Like a flash, Ross slipped from his hiding-place and darted through the
doorway. The only human within sight was Garfin. Like a mad thunderbolt
Ross bore down upon him.
Taken by surprise, Garfin barely had time to fire before Ross was upon
him. Too startled to take definite aim, his bullet went wild. With a
force that was terrific Ross struck him with the full impact of his body.
The two went down in a tangled heap. Garfin’s gun was knocked from his
grasp and went spinning a dozen feet away.
Garfin was not without courage of a kind, but all his life he had
depended on a gun to enforce his arguments. Physical combat had not been
one of his long suits, and now he found himself no match for his younger
antagonist.
Stan Ross was far from a weakling physically. Long months afoot in
the desert had made him as hard as nails. Not so long ago he had been
known as a football player of some note. Now he used that knowledge of
rough-and-tumble combat to the fullest extent.
Taking Garfin by surprise, Ross had the initial advantage, and when the
two went down he was on top. Striking, kicking, using the crushing force
of his body, he went at the gunman in a demoniacal storm. For an instant
it looked as though he would beat his enemy into insensibility before he
could offer any material resistance.
But Garfin was fighting for his life and he knew it. He was not to be
vanquished so easily. In a moment the two men were threshing and rolling
on the ground in a fierce struggle.
Youth, however, was not to be denied. Those sledge-hammer blows were
having a telling effect. Garfin was weakening. Gradually Ross was wearing
him down.
Ross sought the throat of his enemy. Garfin’s breath came in gasps. His
eyes were bulging. Gradually Ross brought his knee up until it pressed
into Garfin’s stomach. A final effort would end the struggle. Slowly
Garfin’s head bent backward. Then—
A crashing, blinding blow caught Ross on his head. For a brief instant a
million fires flamed before his eyes. Then utter blackness.
He slumped forward across the body of his antagonist.
_CHAPTER SEVEN_
WONG INTERVENES
When Ross returned to consciousness it was with a sense of bewilderment.
His head seemed alive with shooting pains: his eyes burned intensely; his
body was sore and stiff.
Gradually he fought the fog from his brain and opened his eyes. He was
dimly aware that he was back in his prison room, stretched out on the
table. Painfully he sat up.
And then he saw that he was not alone. There was another person in the
room. As his eyes pierced the semi-gloom he was aware that the man before
him was Arthur Ward.
Instantly his brain cleared, and he swung himself around to face his
jailor.
Ward was standing in the center of the room, his feet wide apart, his
hands behind his back. A sardonic smile disfigured his face.
“Well,” he inquired, “so you decided not to die?”
“Yes, I decided not to die,” said Ross. “I might remind you, too, that it
is no longer morning and I have not been hung.”
“No, and you’re not going to be, either. I have prepared a much more
pleasant death for you.”
“Thanks!”
“Don’t waste your thanks,” replied Ward. “Before you’re through you’ll be
far from thanking me. You see, Waring, your little outbreak this morning
set me to thinking. If you had taken things quietly I would have hung
you, and it would all be over now. But you had to try to escape and that
set me to thinking that hanging was too pleasant for you. It would be
over too quickly. There would be no time for reflection. So I devised
something really fitting for your case.”
While Ward was speaking the man Poole had entered, carrying a wooden box
which he deposited gingerly in one corner and then quickly withdrew. He
seemed afraid.
“Yes, Waring,” Ward went on, “I’ve planned a death for you that I like
much better than hanging. And, damn your rotten soul to eternity,” he
snarled, “you’ll know what real torture is before you go out!”
With a sudden movement, he whirled, kicked the lid from the box, darted
through the doorway, and had crashed the door shut before Ross fairly
realized what he was doing.
Half bewildered, it was a moment before he could attach any meaning to
Ward’s action. Then it dawned on him that there was a deep significance
to the box which Poole had brought in. Some sinister portent lay in that
box of wood.
Fascinated, Ross sat watching the box, realizing that it held his fate,
scarce knowing what to expect, and certainly not expecting what developed.
For a long minute nothing happened. Ross grew nervous with the strain.
Then a faint buzzing came from the box. Silence. Again came that strange
sound. And again. A slithering rustle as of stiff silk rubbed together.
And then Ross’s scalp prickled with horror and his blood fairly froze in
his veins, for over the edge of the box appeared a hideous, swaying head!
There came a second! A third! And then a fourth!
_They were huge diamond-back rattlesnakes!_
As Ross recognized the big diamond-backs he knew instantly that he was
trapped. To step down onto the floor meant death, a horrible, grewsome
death. To remain on the table—
Instinctively, he drew his feet up onto the table as the big reptiles
left the box, one by one. He counted eight in all.
Ross gave himself up to black despair. Down there on the floor awaited a
fate too hideous for words....
* * * * *
It must have been fully two hours later, and dusk was already settling
down and darkening the room, when Ross heard footsteps.
They approached his prison. For a moment his heart leaped within him at
the possibility of rescue. But the door did not open. Instead, he heard
the taunting voice of Ward from outside:
“Oh, you’re safe enough so far, Waring. They can’t get you as long as
you stay on that table. I planned that. Wasn’t it kind of me to be so
thoughtful? But there won’t be any food and there won’t be any water, and
all the time you’ll be going through hell. I planned that, too. And then
there’ll come a time when you can’t stand it any longer. You’ll either
fall from the table from weakness, or you’ll go mad and step down onto
the floor. They’ll always be waiting, Waring. And then they’ll get you,
damn you!” The voice, rising to a shrill crescendo of passion, ended in a
burst of wild maniacal laughter.
Receding footsteps told him that Ward had gone away.
As the gloom deepened into utter darkness it seemed to Ross that he would
go mad. His brain seethed with wild impulses. A hundred times he pictured
himself lying there on the floor, a bloated, blackened thing. A hundred
times he went through death. Only that hope which “springs eternal” kept
him from stepping down onto the floor and making an end of it.
Gradually Ross quieted. He finally settled back against the wall in a
state of apathy, little knowing or little caring when the end would come.
An hour passed.
Suddenly Ross became aware of an unusual sound. From somewhere in back
of him came a low “_Hist!_” so low as hardly to be heard. Stealthily, he
raised himself to the height of the barred window and peered into the
darkness.
Dimly he could make out a head outlined against the sky. A low, whispered
voice spoke:
“_You take!_”
Unmistakably it was the voice of Wong. There was a grating sound as of
something being passed between the bars.
Ross reached out his hand and it closed over cold steel.
An automatic!
“_You take!_” again came the whispered voice.
This time Ross found his hand closing over a cartridge belt.
“Me bring Ga’fin. _You shoot!_”
Like a ghost, the form at the window was gone without a sound.
With the feel of that cold steel in his hand Ross’s spirits rose like a
tide. All his waning confidence returned. He was instantly his own man
again, confident, cool, without fear.
Quickly he buckled the belt around his waist. With sure fingers, he made
certain that the gun was loaded. Slipping off the safety, he knelt on the
table, facing the door, and waited.
Ross did not know whether he would ever leave that room alive, but he did
know that the first men to open the door would die.
_CHAPTER EIGHT_
“YOU’LL SETTLE WITH ME”
Arthur Ward stood with his back to the big living-room fire, his feet
wide apart, hands crossed behind his back, head lowered, eyes peering
from beneath shaggy brows. It was a characteristic attitude and one which
peculiarly expressed the man’s calculated cruelty.
Beebe was seated on the wide fireplace bench, his feet stretched far in
front of him. He was slowly smoking, his whole sprawling attitude one of
indolent approval. Things were shaping themselves quite to the liking of
Larson Beebe.
The girl, Virginia, was seated in a chair somewhat in front of her uncle.
The wild look of her eyes and her agitated face told that she was going
through an ordeal that was breaking her bit by bit.
“But, Uncle Arthur,” she burst out, “surely you can’t mean to do this
terrible thing. Why, I don’t love Mr. Beebe at all. I scarcely know him,
and I don’t want to marry anyone.”
“My dear niece,” replied Ward evenly, “love has no part in my scheme of
things. Hate rules the world, and hate is my creed. Love makes people
soft and indolent. Hate is the great inspirator. Hate makes the world go
’round.
“Sentiment has no place whatever in this marriage. It is entirely a
marriage of convenience. Your personal inclinations have no weight
whatever. I wish you to marry Beebe; therefore you will do it.”
The girl’s color had heightened as she listened to her uncle’s ultimatum.
As he finished, a grim expression of defiance settled on his face.
“Well, I won’t!” she answered crisply.
“As you will, Virginia, but if you do not consent to marry Beebe within
twenty-four hours I shall leave you here alone with him. I imagine after
a couple of weeks of that you’ll be quite willing to marry him.”
“Oh, you beast!” For an instant, as Ward’s full meaning became clear to
her, it looked as though the girl would faint.
Then, like a wild beast at bay, she turned on Beebe in a burst of blazing
fury.
“And you, Larson Beebe, what have you to say? Are you going to be a party
to this? Are you as much a beast as my uncle?”
Beebe regarded her tolerantly for a moment out of his piggish eyes before
he spoke. A catlike smile of satisfaction curved his lips. He answered
slowly, indolently:
“Virginia, I am wild about you. I want you, and I am going to have you.
As long as you refuse to love me I’m not at all particular how I get you.
One way suits me as well as another.”
The girl turned back to her uncle. Her hands went out in an imploring
gesture. For an instant she seemed about to plead. Then she evidently
thought better of it.
“I suppose you understand, Uncle Arthur,” she asked in a low cold voice,
“that I will kill myself before I will let this happen?”
“My dear Virginia, you do not seem to understand the situation at all.
You are absolutely in my power. You cannot kill yourself because I will
not permit it. I will not give you the chance. You will do exactly as I
say.”
“_Not yet, Ward! First, you’ll settle with me!_”
Stanley Ross stood in the doorway. But it was not the Stanley Ross,
urbane, bored, carefree, who, a few days before, had whimsically sought
adventure up an unknown canon trail. He had found adventure now, and it
had used him roughly. His face and hands were grimy. His clothes were
dirty and torn. One sleeve had been almost rent from his shoulder. His
hair was riotously disheveled and clotted with blood. Down one side of
his face extended a great splash of dirty dried blood.
In his right hand was an ugly-looking automatic, and in his face and eyes
was a look of savage fury.
At the sound of Ross’s voice, Ward whirled and whipped out a gun. But
he was too late, for Ross, with a steadiness and coldness belied by
the savagery of his face and figure, had fired. A look of unutterable
amazement overspread the face of Arthur Ward. He wavered on his feet for
a moment, and then, when a spot of red began to widen on his shirt front,
he toppled backward, lifeless.
Almost at the same instant a hatchet hurtled through the room and buried
its blade deep in the wall beside Larson Beebe, missing his head by
the merest fraction of an inch. Wong was going into action. Beebe slid
forward from his seat and ducked to temporary safety behind the table.
Ward had not had time to aim, but he had instinctively pulled the
trigger. The bullet caught Ross on the head and cut a long shallow furrow
just above his left temple. The wound itself was not serious, but for a
moment it blinded Ross. That moment was fatal, for as he roused himself
from the shock he knew that he had forgotten Poole.
Instantly Ross whirled to face the other doorway, but was too late. The
heavy bullet spun him half around. For an instant he fought to retain his
balance. Then he pitched forward onto the floor.
Painfully, with almost a superhuman effort, Ross raised himself with one
hand and deliberately shot Poole through the chest.
Then, mercifully, consciousness was blotted out.
_CHAPTER NINE_
VIRGINIA EXPLAINS
When Ross returned to consciousness it was to a blurred, feverish,
pain-wracked world.
He did not know where he was or what had happened. He only knew that his
head was bandaged and splitting with pain; that his shoulder was stiff
and sore, incapable of being moved even the fraction of an inch, and that
it pained with a dull, throbbing hurt; that his eyes burned and blurred;
and that his entire body burned with ten thousand fires.
Of one thing more was Ross conscious. That was the girl. When she saw
that Ross had temporarily come out of the fog she hurried to his side and
answered the unasked question on his lips by holding a cup of cold water
to them. She seemed to have been waiting for ages to do just that.
Ross drank gratefully, but when he would have questioned her she laid her
finger across his lips and said;
“_Sh-h-h-ush!_ Not now. We’ll talk when you feel better. Just now you
need sleep more than anything else.”
And Stanley Ross obeyed. In an instant he was asleep, a wild, feverish
sleep that brought no rest.
There followed days of half consciousness, half nightmare; days when Ross
neither knew nor cared what happened, when wild delirium alternated with
painful reality.
He was far too ill to make any inquiries about anything that had
happened. In fact, he was only conscious of the fact that whenever the
fog lifted the girl always seemed to be present—a ministering angel who
brought cooling draughts, and soothing applications for his head and
shoulders.
Finally there came a day when Ross awoke to a sane world. The fever fog
had departed from his brain. His head no longer throbbed and beat like
a thousand devils. His shoulder was sore and stiff, but it no longer
was filled with maddening pain. He was weak, very weak, but the world
was once more interesting and he was acutely aware of a most prodigious
appetite.
Ross was aware that he was in the room to which he had been conducted
by Garfin on the night of the strange dinner. Beyond that, he was not
interested. He was aware that the girl was still acting as his nurse.
At meal time the Chinese, Wong, came in with a tray. He was still too
weak to care as to the whereabouts of the others, or what had happened on
the night of the fight.
He did learn that the girl’s name was Virginia Carver, but that was all.
In less than a week he was sitting out on the long veranda every
afternoon. With returning strength came returning curiosity. He wanted to
know the story of this strange habitation in the desert and to learn just
what had happened on the night Wong had aided him to escape.
Several times he broached the subject to the girl, but each time she put
him off with the statement that he was not yet strong enough to talk. The
excuse was obviously becoming threadbare, however, as his health improved.
One afternoon, while Ross was sitting on the veranda, the girl came
out and took a seat opposite him. It was patent that the time for
explanations had come.
“I suppose, Mr. Ross,” began Virginia Carver, “that you have been
wondering just what this whole thing is about, and you certainly are
entitled to an explanation. I don’t know how I am ever going to thank you
for what you have done for me. You were very brave.”
“Well, suppose you forget about the thanks, Miss Carver,” said Ross,
visibly embarrassed. “I _would_ like to know all about this queer affair,
though. I thought Arabian Nights were ancient history, but I’m about
ready to believe anything.”
“In order for you to understand I’ll have to take you back about seven
years,” explained the girl. “At that time my uncle, Arthur Ward, was one
of the biggest operators in Wall Street. All his life he has been a very
peculiar man; eccentric; always doing queer things for which there seemed
no explanation, and never taking any one into his confidence.
“In the Street he was known as a plunger. He made a great deal of money.
Just how much I have no idea beyond the fact that he was always very
generous with my mother, his sister. But at one time he must have been
very wealthy indeed.
“Seven years ago it seems that he plunged too heavily and got caught.
His fortune was practically wiped out. When everything was settled up he
was still a wealthy man—that is, he was probably worth a half million
dollars—but the great bulk of his fortune was gone.
“He fought fiercely to keep from going under. There were days and nights
at a time when I don’t think he slept at all. He was like a wild man, but
the combination against him was too great and he went under.
“At first we thought he was going to lose his mind. For weeks he acted
very queer. Finally he seemed to get a hold on himself and he appeared
rational.
“He settled up his business, and then suddenly disappeared. He left no
word where he was going—just dropped out of sight. That was seven years
ago, and for two years we heard nothing from him. Five years ago I got a
letter from him asking me to visit him here. I came and found things just
about as you see them now.
“He seemed perfectly rational and contented. Of course, he was queer and
erratic, but he had always been that. He seemed to have forgotten Wall
Street entirely and spent most of his time making a collection of the
accoutrements of horse and man of the old-time West. I doubt if there is
a finer collection in existence.
“He did a lot of entertaining, too, for his old friends, inviting them
out for long visits. Here his eccentricity cropped out, for he insisted
on going to great lengths to have everything just as it would be in New
York. There must be fifteen dress suits in the house, and he always asked
every one to dress for dinner. He imported wines and foods. Wong has been
with him ever since he has been here and he is an excellent cook.
“I came out every year. He was always very kind to me and has made every
effort to entertain me. I thought he acted a little more queer each year,
and I often wondered if he was not a little unbalanced mentally.
“When I came out this year there was a great change. I saw at once
that he was quite mad. He imagined that he was being persecuted by the
Warings, and kept Poole and Garfin, New York gunmen, to protect him.
The Warings were the people who engineered his defeat in Wall Street,
and Uncle Arthur hated them intensely. He not only imagined they were
persecuting him, but he also imagined that the younger Waring, whom I
have never seen, was trying to marry me. This seemed to be an obsession
with him.
“When I got here I found that Larson Beebe was Uncle Arthur’s guest. I
had met Mr. Beebe in New York several times, and I detested him. I had
good reason to. He—well, I have always despised him.
“Just what his hold or influence on Uncle Arthur was I haven’t the
slightest idea, but I had hardly arrived before Uncle Arthur began to
insist that I marry him.
“Of course, I refused, and it was then that Uncle Arthur’s insanity came
to the surface. He had always been kindness itself, but now he suddenly
became the very incarnation of cruelty. While there was no question but
that he was entirely mad, yet in his madness his brain was as shrewd and
cunning as ever.
“When I refused to marry Beebe he began to practice his cruelties on me
in an effort to break my will. I was utterly at his mercy, for there was
no way that I could escape. All I could do was submit.
“The culmination of his indignities was to chain me to the rocks where
you found me. Whether he would have left me there till I was dead I
hardly know, but I think not. His brain was so unbalanced that it would
be hard to tell.
“I ran away that night because I knew he would kill you if he found
you with me. Evidently he had Garfin watching me, or he would not have
learned that you had released me. He was obsessed with the idea that you
were the younger Waring.
“The rest of the story you know. I dare not think of what would have
happened to me if you had not come to my rescue, Mr. Ross.”
“But what really happened the night I escaped?” asked Ross.
“Well—you shot both Uncle Arthur and Poole,” she replied hesitatingly.
“Did I—did I—” he floundered helplessly.
“Yes,” she replied evenly. “Providence helped your aim that night. Wong
buried them both. No, Mr. Ross,” she finished, as she noted the look on
his face, “don’t feel that way about it. If you hadn’t killed them they
would have killed you, and I would have suffered a fate worse than death.
Under the circumstances I cannot feel sorry.”
“What happened to Beebe?” asked Ross, curious as to the fate of that
dubious individual.
“That’s a mystery. He simply disappeared that night and we have not seen
him since. Wong just barely missed him that night with a hatchet. I think
he is deathly afraid of Wong. At any rate, he is gone. And now, Mr. Ross,
I want to ask you a question: How did you manage to escape from your
prison that night? Wong won’t tell me a thing. He just grins when I ask
him, and I suspect I owe a great deal to Wong.”
“You surely do, Miss Carver,” answered Ross fervently. “That Chinaman is
a wonder. In some way he got hold of my automatic and cartridge belt. He
passed them to me through the window, and then, under some pretense, got
Garfin to come and open the door. Then—well, Garfin won’t ever bother us
again.”
_CHAPTER TEN_
A NEW DANGER
With the passing days, Ross found new strength and new interest. His
head was already healed and his shoulder, beyond being stiff, no longer
bothered him. While still somewhat weak, he was able to walk about as he
pleased.
He found it very pleasant to pass the afternoons away on the long
veranda. Here he was often joined by Virginia Carver, and the two spent
hours together that were very pleasant. In fact, Ross suddenly became
acutely aware that he was taking more than a passing interest in this
girl.
Virginia Carver was exceedingly lovely. Moreover, she was of a type and
personality that particularly appealed to Stanley Ross. While she was
nursing him through his illness he had found her presence very pleasing.
Now that he was nearly well, her companionship was becoming even more
delightful, and he realized that, as far as he was concerned, friendship
was ripening into something more definite. As he continued to improve he
knew that the time was fast approaching when they would have to leave
this desert oasis.
He found his mind continually recurring to Larson Beebe. How had he
managed to disappear so completely that night? Where had he gone? What
was he doing now? Ross could not dismiss the idea that they would hear
from Beebe again, and that when they did it would mean trouble.
This conviction was the more firmly fixed in his mind by the actions of
Virginia Carver. Ross felt sure that the girl was deeply worried over
something; she seemed anxious and nervous; she appeared to be continually
watching and listening for something. Intuition told Ross that the cause
of her perturbation was Beebe.
Intuition again told him that perhaps Wong could throw some light on the
situation. The next time that the Chinese appeared on the veranda Ross
stopped him.
“Wong,” he said, “Miss Carver seems to be worried about something. Do you
know what it is? Is it about Beebe? Do you know where he is?”
Wong’s face betrayed not a single glimmer of comprehension.
“No savvy,” he said.
“Yes, you do savvy, too. What’s wrong here? Where’s Beebe?”
Wong glanced hurriedly up and down the veranda as though he feared some
one would overhear him. Then he jerked a meaning finger toward the mouth
of the little canon.
“Him there,” he said in a low voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Him hide in canon. Kill all we go out.”
“We don’t have to go out that way.”
“No other way can go,” explained Wong.
“What! You mean to tell me that’s the only way out of this place? Why
can’t we go out over the cliffs?”
“No can do,” replied the Chinese, and was gone before Ross could question
him further.
So that was it! The canon was the only way out of the basin, and Beebe
was hiding down there, waiting to pot them as they came out. Quite a neat
little idea! So that was why Virginia Carver was carrying that worried
look.
Ross went straight to the girl. He found her in the dining-room.
“Miss Carver,” he asked, “why didn’t you tell me that Beebe was down in
that canon?”
“Well, I couldn’t see any use worrying you with that while you were so
ill,” she replied, smiling. “And then, too, Mr. Ross, I think you are a
little inclined to do impulsive things, and it seems to me you have ran
risks enough on my account.”
Ross ignored this last.
“Then he really is there?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Ross, he is, and I am afraid that we are in rather a bad way.
He has all the advantage.”
“But isn’t there any way out of this place except through that canon?”
“None at all. Uncle Arthur selected this place for that very reason.
There was a trail up the cliff, but he dynamited that away. Unless we
develop wings we’ll go out through that canon or not at all.”
Ross pondered for a moment. Finally he asked, “I wonder why he hasn’t
tried to kill Wong and me at night?”
“There are at least two reasons, I think,” answered the girl. “The first
is that Larson Beebe is a very cautious man. He will not risk a single
hair of his head if it is not necessary. If he came up here he might get
hurt. If he stays there he is perfectly safe and we haven’t a single
chance of getting by.
“Another thing, I think he is deathly afraid of Wong. He came up in the
night twice and stole provisions. Since then Wong has been watching. I
don’t think he ever sleeps.”
“Well, we can outlast him anyway, Miss Carver.”
“But that’s just what we can’t do, Mr. Ross. Our provisions are very
low.” The girl was gravely serious now. “Unless we can find some
solution, I’m afraid he is going to starve us out very soon. It looks
like we were trapped.”
_CHAPTER ELEVEN_
WONG HAS AN IDEA
Ross woke the next morning keenly aware of the seriousness of their
predicament. As soon as breakfast was over he set out to examine the
walls of the basin.
If he had any hope that there was a means of escape over the cliffs he
was soon disillusioned. Nowhere was there a break in the walls. They were
as perpendicular as a plumb-line and as smooth as basalt. Nothing but a
fly could have scaled those cliffs.
The only way out led through the narrow twisting canon below. And there
Larson Beebe lay in wait like a cat at a rat-hole. Ross realized that
there was little or no chance for him or Wong to get through the canon
alive. Beebe had all the advantage.
Ross returned to the house and sat down on the veranda. He ran over a
dozen possible schemes for escape, and in the end he had to conclude that
they were all impossible.
In fact, his only conclusion was that he would give what fortune he
possessed to have Larson Beebe’s neck within the grasp of his two hands.
That, however, seemed to be a remote possibility. If anything, the
situation would be reversed.
Ross had about exhausted his whole range of impossible schemes when Wong
appeared on the veranda. The Chinese wore an enigmatical smile on his
usually inscrutable face. It was patent that he was well pleased with
something.
“You come,” he addressed Ross. “Got something show.”
Ross rose and followed Wong, who led the way to one of the ’dobe
outbuildings. Opening the door, he motioned Ross to enter.
The room was a work-shop of sorts, but what instantly attracted attention
were two enormous kites leaning against the wall.
“You see?” inquired Wong.
“Yes, I see,” said Ross, “only I don’t. What’s the idea, Wong?”
“Mlisha Beebe kill everybody we go down canon. No can climb out. Wong
make klite. Klite climb out.”
“Guess I’m pretty thick, Wong. I don’t get it yet.”
“When Wong little bloy China he fly many klites. Not forget how. Fly
klite now. Klite lift lope top cliff. We climb lope. Go ’way.”
“By George, Wong, I believe you’ve got it,” cried Ross in admiration.
“But will it work?”
“Can do” nodded Wong.
“But how will you fasten the rope at the top of the cliff, Wong?”
“Wong good klite flyer. Two klites lift big loop. Drop loop over tree
top side cliff. Two ends hang dlown. Mlake slip knot. Pull one lope. All
done.”
“Wong, you’re a wonder! I believe it’ll work. Worth trying anyway.”
“Can do. Try tomollow if wind come.”
Ross hurried away to find Virginia Carver.
“Miss Carver,” he hailed her joyously, “Wong has got a scheme to get us
out of here, and I believe it will work. He has constructed two enormous
kites down there in the workshop. He claims they will lift a rope, and
he says he can drop it over one of those stunted pines at the top of the
cliff. We climb the rope and leave friend Beebe down in the canon to hold
the bag. Are you game?”
“Of course I am,” replied the girl, surprised that he should even
question her gameness.
“I knew you would be. We’re going to try it tomorrow. You had better make
two packs of food.”
“Two packs? Don’t I carry anything?” asked the girl.
“Miss Carver,” said Ross gravely, “it’s a long way to civilization, and
it is going to be a big tax on your strength to make it without carrying
anything.”
“I’ll make it,” said Virginia Carver, as she turned away.
The following morning Ross was eager for the experiment, but it was
nearly noon before a breeze came up strong enough to lift the kites.
Virginia Carver came out, clad in flannel shirt, whipcord breeches and
high laced boots. It was a costume well suited to the work ahead, but it
accentuated the girl’s slimness, made her appear almost frail. There was
no frailty there, though. Rather was she supple with the suppleness of a
braided cable, and the girl had the grace of a fine Toledo blade. Once
again Stanley Ross became acutely aware that Virginia Carver had become
an exceedingly important interest in his life.
Wong had instructed Ross in his scheme for escape. Ross saw at once that
he had not intended to lift a rope heavy enough to hold a human being.
Instead Wong had unearthed from one of the storehouses a very stout light
line.
The plan was to lift the bight of the line with the two kites and drop
it over a stunted pine growing out at an angle near the top of the north
cliff. A heavier rope could then be attached to one end of this and drawn
up and over the tree, making it possible to climb out.
Ross saw instantly that the plan was all right if the kites could be
manipulated. That was Wong’s job, and he seemed quite confident.
All three knew that they must work quickly. If Larson Beebe discovered
their scheme there was no telling what desperate action he might attempt.
Wong and Ross quickly got the first big kite into action. It rose
readily, but on attaining a height of fifty feet flopped drunkenly. It
did not fall, however—merely dipped and darted. This did not appear to
bother Wong at all. He simply gave the kite string to Virginia Carver to
hold while he quickly flew the second kite with Ross’s help.
Wong and Ross each took command of a kite now. Slowly paying out cord,
they allowed the kites to rise. When the kites had risen to a height
of about seventy-five feet the cords attached to the bight of the line
suddenly became taut and the line began to rise from the ground.
It was then that Ross saw that as a designer of kites Wong most
emphatically knew his business, for the instant the weight of the
line was borne by the kites in that instant they ceased their drunken
plungings and flew steadily.
Ross’s heart leaped within him, for he knew now that Wong’s scheme would
work and that they were going to circumvent Larson Beebe. Up, up, the
kites rose. A hundred feet! Two hundred! Five! A thousand!
The two kites were about thirty feet apart, and when it was obvious that
the line was higher than the cliff wall Wong and Ross began to walk
slowly forward. Their objective was a single low pine growing at an
outward angle near the top of the cliff. Aiming carefully at this, Wong
and Ross brought the kites to a position where an end of the line dangled
on each side of the tree and against the cliff. The bight of the line was
slightly above the tree, and the kites were pulling it forward.
“Missee, you grab ropes,” shouted Wong.
Quickly divining what was wanted of her, Virginia Carver grasped the ends
of the dangling lines.
“Let glo!” shouted Wong again.
Instantly he and Ross released the kite cords. The kites plunged
drunkenly down out of sight over the top of the cliff. The bight of the
line dropped neatly over the pine tree and slid down its trunk to the
roots. The thing was done!
Ross wanted to shout for pure joy. Elation showed in Virginia Carver’s
every feature. As for Wong, the author of this daring scheme, he merely
grinned, and went swiftly to work.
Somewhere in one of the buildings Wong had discovered a coil of light
rope. It had undoubtedly been brought in to be made up into lariats, for
it was very pliable and exceedingly strong—strong enough to support the
weight of a heavy man.
One end of this was fastened to a free end of the line over the tree.
When Wong pulled sharply on the opposite end of the smaller line it
slipped readily over the tree trunk. In a minute or two the end of the
rope had been pulled up over the tree trunk and back to the canon floor.
Thus was the light line replaced by the heavier one.
There was no place to anchor one of the rope ends so Wong simply tied a
loop in one end of the rope, passed the other end through it, making a
running noose, and quickly ran it up to the tree. Wong’s kites had proved
their worth. The means of escape was provided and ready.
“Wong go first,” said the Chinese. Without argument or permission, the
intrepid Wong was assuming the risk of proving the safety of the rope. By
way of explanation he added to Ross, “You shoulda no stlong. No can pull
Missee up, Wong can do.”
Wong grasped the rope in his hands, and with the agility of a cat,
feet on the canon wall, passed himself, hand over hand, up the face of
the cliff. It seemed hardly a minute before he was at the top and had
scrambled over the edge.
In a moment his head reappeared and he called down to Ross to send up the
food packs, canteens, and blankets. This was but the work of a moment,
and Wong quickly drew them to the top.
So far everything had gone well, and there was no sign of Beebe. It
looked as though they were going to make good their escape.
When Wong let the rope down again Ross fashioned a loop in the end of it,
which he passed over Virginia Carver’s head and secured it under her arms.
“Now, Miss Carver, if you will take hold of the rope with both hands I
think Wong can pull you up safely,” he said. “If you hit against the
cliff push yourself away with your feet.”
The girl did not answer him, but she smiled confidently. She accepted her