Detective Bob Bridger — page 235: what you’re looking at

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

228 DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. While his body was yet in the air the panel door of the trap had been sprung shut, and all about him was impene- trable blackness. Not a ray of light from any source penetrated the thick darkness that surrounded him. The air was chilly, foul, and damp. An odor of decaying blood, such as one meets in the vicinity of a slaughter-house, assailed his nostrils. The squeaking of numberless rats sounded in his ears from the dark recesses about. The plashing and rumbling of sewage in the sewer to the left he plainly heard. A distant hum of voices, and sound of clicking glasses, | came from the bar-room above. There was no use to shout for aid, for that would only bring the ‘‘gang” upon him before he was prepared to offer them proper resistance. He dared not strike a match, for that had disclosed his whereabouts, and a bullet from some interstice in the wall might end all. Something, however, had to be done, for Bridger had no notion of ‘“‘saying die until he was dead.” Staggering to his feet, the sleuth-hound began a cautious investigation of his surroundings. He could only do so by his sense of touch. He found that he was inclosed in an oblong square five feet wide, some thirty feet long, and bordered on all sides by stone walls. Half way in either of the long side walls was a narrow door of heavy wood, without lock or keyhole and firmly barred without. At regular intervals of two feet in the wall, at the rear side, were interstices between the stones. These holes were some two inches wide, and beginning at a point two feet from the earth, extended upward a dis- tance of three or more feet. They were sheeted with iron, and appeared to widen as they extended backward. The noise of the rats, as they ran squeaking about, a showed that back of the rear wall was a broad cellar-way. Doubtless in this cellar-way some of the “gang” then © lurked, or would soon approach to dispatch the trapped sleuth-hound. 5 : Bridger determined to get out of the reach of these holes in the wall if possible. * Did he remain on the earth at the trap’s bottom that comicbooks.com