The Argosy, April 1912 — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

136 They drew close to the edge of the hol- low which lay not far from the hut, and, pushing aside the bushes, looked down. Sim had taken a roundabout course, and, having worked his way half-way down the great rocky bowl, was standing still. He glanced about, as if to make sure he was unobserved. Then he darted into a rift in the wall and vanished. It was half an hour before he came out. The carpet-bag he had carried in with him was bulging full. his shoulder, he climbed swiftly along the sloping path, zigzagging this way and that, until he was lost in the confusion of shrub- bery at the top of the hollow. “Tie low, professor!” warned Fred. “All right.” The two crouched beneath the under- brush. -Hardly were they concealed when Sim, carrying his carpet-bag, passed close by them and entered the shanty. As he closed the door they heard the dogs barking a noisy welcome. “Tf they hadn't been shut up I guess they'd have given us away,” observed Pro- fessor Shaw. “Let’s go down,” suggested Fred briefly. “T'm with you,” was the equally laconic response. Cautiously they worked their way out of the shrubbery, and found the well-beaten path down into the ravine. Sim Galt did not come out. They were ready to dodge out of sight in case he did appear. “Here’s the place, professor. He went through the side just about here. And, by George, here’s the hole in the wall.” The professor nodded, and in another moment was swallowed up in the same cleft through which Sim Galt had gone with his bag. It was very dark. He looked over his shoulder and asked: “Are you there, Barrington ?”’ et certainly am. Where the dickens are we going?” ee ‘We i find out if we walk on, I guess,” teplied the professor. “Wait while I strike a match.” The light revealed that they were in a cavern of what seemed to be ordinary sand- stone. There was nothing in sight even distantly suggestive of No. 1 “He doesn’t get that powder here, that’s certain,” remarked the professor, ‘We shall have to go farther.” “Right you are, professor!” returned Fred cheerily. “Drive on!” Throwing the bag upon - THE ARGOSY. The match went out, and Fred did not trouble to light another. In fifteen minutes or more they struck daylight again, but not much of it. They were a long way below the general surface of the mountain. The place in which they stood was a pit, not more than a dozen feet in diameter, and some fifty feet deep. The professor looked around him with a sweeping glance, and then gave uttterance to an ejaculation of satisfaction. “I believe we’ve got it, Barrington!” he said, as he stooped and picked up a handful of powder from the ground. The walls and bottom of the nie were all of gray clay in some places, and dust of the same hue in others. Wherever Fred and the professor looked they saw a seem- ingly inexhaustible supply of either clay or powder, and every atom of it was the precious No. I1—the secret ingredient that made the Barrington chemical glass the finest in the world! “Well, professor, it’s here,’’ chuckled Fred Barrington. ‘The next thing will be to talk to Sim Galt. This is our quarry, and I’ll make him explain why he has been selling the No. 1 powder to Carl Steiner. If he’s insolent, I may clap him in jail.” “Have you any proof that your father owned this quarry?” asked the professor dryly. -“Why—er—I presume so. I’ve never looked it up, but it has always been under- stood that No. 1 was the exclusive property of the Barrington Company. It couldn't be that if we didn’t own this pit, could it?” “Well, you see—” Professor Shaw had got so far, when he stopped and stared hard at something over Fred Barrington’s shoulder. Instinctively Fred swung around to see what it was. Little wonder that he uttered an inco- herent interjection of astonishment and clenched his fist. For he found himself looking into the scowling face of a man he had supposed to be fifty miles away—Carl Steiner! CHAPTER XVIII. OUT OF THE SMOKE OF BATTLE. “Wy, where did you come from?” The query burst from Barrington’s lips almost without volition. It was a natural ebullition of surprise that he could not have controlled if he would. EO HOO) S (CO