Under His Thumb — page 206: what you’re looking at

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

UNDER HIS THUMB. 197 _perate himself, and possessed many kindly charac- teristics. There was a side entrance to the place with which Stella was familiar, and the brave girl made her way directly to it. As it chanced, she met the pro- _prietor face to face just within this door. “My tather, Mr. Ridley—is he here?’’ she ques- tioned. ‘‘He has just gone,’’ was the reply. And in re- sponse to the mute appeal of her countenance, he kindly added: ‘“‘He was not very badly off, though not quite sober. But I think he can take care of him- self. He said he was going to Blankley’s. I wouldn’t fret about him, Stella.’ She did not wait to hear his last remark. ‘Come, we must find him,’’ she said to her com- panion, and they hastened along the dingy streets, coming at last to a locality which they knew to be one of the most lawless in the city. As they neared a certain point they heard a shout from the opposite side of the street, and saw a man running as though for his life. ‘‘Itis my father!’’ Stella gasped. CHAPTER XXVIII. “SURROUNDED. ~ Down came the telephone pole with a crash in the . obscure court—a crash that awakened momentary curiosity in the few who heard it, perhaps, but not sufficient to impel them to investigate. The two ruffians, one of whom held the ax with which he had chopped down the pole, rushed toward the other end of it, expecting to find the man who had climbed to its summit mangled and dead on the flagstones. One of the men flashed a ray of light from a lan- tern upon the scene. There lay the pole, with broken insulators and a fragment of wire. But this was all. No mangled body; no sign of the one they sought to destroy, either living or dead. “We have missed him after all,’’ whispered the man with the ax. Ecomicbooks co m