The Crime of the Trenches: or, Clif Faraday's Last Cartridge — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

dignified as ever. ‘‘You stuck to him ! Old ‘i’error has a broken claw, one eye knocked out, but he’ll pull through, and you, Faraday! I gave you up when I couldn’t arouse you two hours since.”’ ‘Vie?’ propounded Clif. “(Working while you rest.”’ ' “What’s that??? © “T don’t know, but he said there was those people to watcl.”’ ““T understand,’’? nodded Clif. ‘*Now then, Tom, tell me what happened at the old church.’? “Vic dodged destruction, you went down inthe crash. I got away froma burly Spaniard who knocked me into the fuel vault of the old hulk. It took us hours, but we finally burrowed you out.”’ ‘*Hurt ?”? “Don’t you feel it ?”’ Clif did, in bruises, in a certain sway- ing confusion of the mind, but he got up quite steadily. “Tf you’ll brace yourself on some of that truck, I’ll tell you the rest,’’ prom- ised the gunner’s mate, pointing to a stand containing some cordial and _ bis- cuits. ‘*‘We brought you here and pro- vided that, for the one apology for a doc- tor we could find in call said you had no broken bones, only a broken head, and your appetite would be more alarm- ing than your pain when you came to!”’ Clif mechanically drained a glass and crumbled up a biscuit, but his eyes were anxious and unsatisfied. ‘*Where is this place ?’’ he asked. ‘*Near the church.”’ ‘And that other house ?’’ ‘“The one we were watching ?”’ SVWes?? ‘“Vic is attending to that.”’ “Then it’s all right!’’? hoped Clif, with a half-satisfied sigh. ‘‘Is someone with you?’’ he abruptly demanded, as there was a rustling in the hall outside. “There is,’’ confessed ‘Tom Warring- ton. “’Who?’’ : ‘fA file of soldiers. As Itold you, when you did not wake up at dusk as Vic in- sisted and the doctor prophesied, I felt that I was taking a dealwf responsibility in letting matters run on careless like. There’s a camp three miles away. I told BLUE. a captain thie circumstance—your name was enough. ‘The soldiers were sent. They’ve got a letter——”’ | ‘No letter for me!’’ declared Clif, with arousing spirit, ‘‘but—I’ll utilize their. services just the same if there is no ob- jection.”’ “Vou ll find them accommodatineg,’’ pledged Warrington. ‘The promise was not a wild one. Clif’s mind roused up as his nerves and wits got fully uatangled from the prize tumble of his active career. : : What Vic was about he did not know, but while he realized that his indomitable fellow cadet had certainly made straight for matters pertaining to David Parr, the missing marine, and his stolen betrothed, he felt that it was a complicated affair for one person to handle, and promptly worked out an immediate course of action for himself. He had the soldiers in the room just long enough to explain that the interests of the serviee demanded an _ official visit to a certain house near by. Clif led the way to the place he knew had housed the renegade and lis asso- ciate the night previous. — It held them no longer, however. As he approached the place, he vubserved only a veiled woman haunting its rear yard, who furtively vanished as she saw the intruders, and a man seated in the open rear doorway, smoking indolently. The fellow was pert, insolent, indiffer- ent, and Clif could not recognize him as any adherent of the renegade he had seen before. BAR The man willingly led him through the house—it held no other occupant. — ‘‘Tamn looking for a so-called Ameri- can nained Parr,’’ said Clif, ‘‘as you well know, for a second miscreant nained Vizel, and oue Bruce.’’ ye ‘You will find them all gone—hours since—save the one you name, Bruce. It is for him I am keeping the adinitted the Spaniard. — aS “What! he is coming back?’ ex- claimed Clif, ng ‘Surely! And why not?’ Even as the man spoke, braggart, and_ with a certain undertone of defiance, Clif | Faraday sprang half way across the room. ‘THERE ARE SYMPTOMS OF MADNESS IN No. 135 OF TIP TOP £ . > ¢ ’ + - « ° . ‘ * rrr é . - i a. F “—_ « ™ “fe a? 4 ra 2" > a _— ~~ —» ‘4% - «i eo yy a « ‘4 . > es + o ; P » & teh, Ny r" we < ‘ * r? » ee ae A = ‘ “ ai foe et > “ Ther ss ey eee Ze AF, Cw : “ity : - La) $ ‘" ye: f > 4 #* .” «hea 7 “7 e ae we 7 4 2 ’ 7m , aA - * Sata ag a A . ae , * FS a oe oy ao - 3 2, w,* > - house open,’’ e ve it . comicbooks.com