Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 1006 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

_ two breaths could be drawn, 2 — — Flipper Frank's Flush: Tracking the Dodger from New York to New Orleans. BY CHARLES MORRIS, CHAPTER I, A BOY'S BRAVE DEED, Tuk flames leaped like fiery serpents into the air, writhing and hissing. It seemed as if they would set the very sky on fire, so virulently did they shoot upward, while the burning mass from which they came glowed like a flery furnace seven times heated, It was a well-known New York hotel which was thus being converted into smoke and ashes, a tinder-box through which the flames ran riot, and whose inmates were in imminent danger of a horrible death. Some had already been dashed to death by leaping wildly from the windows, Others had fallen into the gulf of fire within. The flames had seized on stairs and elevator, and cut off flight by the usual channels of escape, The fire- men were busy with ladders, bearing whom they could from the windows; while the puffing en- gines were pouring hopeless streams of water into the blazing mass, Few of the guests had been able to save their valuables. Most of thém fled in their night- clothes, not even taking time to snatch up a gar- ment of defense against thesharp air of the win- try night, Jarious were their exclamations of horror and dismay. One gentleman, who had just been helped down the ladder from a, third-story win- dow by a burly fireman, with only a night-shirt to protect him from the biting wind, broke from the hands of his saver with a bitter lamenta- tion. ** All is gone! All!” he moaned, ‘‘ My pa- pe adie money—my all! Fifty thousand dol- ars ws up by those terrible flames! All gone! —all! And ruin is my lot.” He wrung his hands like one in the deepest despair. he bystanders listened with sudden interest. Fifty thousand dollars! Papers, probably of great value. A hundred eyes were turned up- ward to the window from which the man had io risa and against which the ladder still stood. No! flames were bursting from the upper por- tion of the sash, It was hopeless, Who would risk his life to save this man’s wealth? His own life had been preserved, and that must be enough, , ‘* Come,” said the rough but kind-hearted fire- man who had rescued him, ‘‘ Don’t mind that, You ought to be glad you’re alive. Come out of this, before you freeze into an icicle.” He led the’ man away—still wringing his hands, and bitterly bemoaning bis losses. ‘*Poor devil,” said one of the firemen, ‘it is hard, Takes no small scratching to P Se to- ether sucha pile, Hang me, if I wouldn’t go or it, but—” He looked upward and shook his head. “*Shoot me if I ain’t going for it!” cried a youthful voice beside him, and a boy, not yet grown to the size of manhood, sprung from the crowd and onto the ladder, up which be went with the agility of a monkey. The daring act was witnessed by hundreds of aes all of whose eyes were fixed intently on he lad. The cool heads ence Paty called to him to return, but others excitedly cheered him on, f The young acrobat seemed as if he had been born to the ladder, Heedlessof the cries below him, he ran up it like a cat, and almost before was at the window at which the heat was so great that the top of the ladder was already beginning to blaze, He paused a moment at the cavernous open- ing, out of which the light shone blindingly. I[t seemed to those below that he was shrinking from a hopeless task. ** Back! back!” they cried. ‘*‘Come down! It is death to venture! The daring boy’s only reply was to tear off his coat, wrap it round his head, and dash with a wild leap into the room—at the same moment that a stream of water, directed by the hand of a wide-awake hoseman, struck him and drenched him from head to foot. {n situations like this seconds become minutes, minutes become hours. The eyes of hundreds of spectators were fixed on that window, in eager expectation, the daring feat of the boy | i ' Flipper Frank’s Flush. rr a —_—_—_—————- having drawn their attention from the thrilling scenes that were taking place at half the win- dows of the burning building. Not sixty seconds had elapsed, but they seemed to the strained attention of the observers like almost as many minutes, when the form of the boy again appeared at the window, framed in a brilliant background of flames, His coat was blazing, but the stream of water which met him full in the face quickly extin- guished it, and again drenched him. The blaze which had taken hold of the ladder was also ex- tinguished. Ata wave of his hand the stream was turned away, and he sprung again upon the ladder, down which he ran as nimbly as two feet and one hand could carry him.—The other hand seemei engaged in grasping some object, A wild shout of congratulation arose as he reached the ground—still holding the object to his breast, ‘‘ Brave fellow!—Are you safe?—Are you hurt?” were the cries that surrounded him, ‘*T s’pose l’d been a cinder now if that sensi- ble somebody hadn’t turned the water on,” he replied, ‘* Hot up there?—hot ain’t no word for it! That water jumped into steam. But, it lasted long enough to help me through,” Hardly had his foot left the ladder before two firemen seized it, and shifted it to another window at which a human form had just ap- peared, This new incident took the attention of most of the people from the lad. ‘“‘f reckon that man, whatever his name is, owes me @ new coat, and some plaster for scorches,” he coolly remarked, ‘' I’ve captured the box that I s’pose holds his spondulicks,” He now displayed the object which he had clasped soclosely, It was a mahogany casket, inlaid with what seemed silver, which formed a curved border round the lid, and in its center the letters J. P. C. ‘‘ Who’s to take care of this?” asked the boy, looking round him, ‘‘I ain’t to be trusted with somuch wealth. Couldn’t keep my fingers from investing. Where's the man as owns it?” ‘*He’s been taken away toa warm quarter,” answered a policeman, who stood near. ‘‘ Give me the box. I will take care of it till he shows up again,” The boy—one of the sharpest of the sharp kind they grow in New York—looked up into the policeman’s face with eyes that seemed to pierce through him. ‘‘T reckon not, Johnny,” he answered, ‘I boss this job yet. Come over here to Tommy Brown’s shebang, on the avenue, and we'll take a peep inside—for the box has got the key in it, Then, I judge, Tommy will be a safe hand to bold it,” The policeman made no objection, and in a few minutes he and the boy, with a group of the spectators, found themselves within an all- ‘| night restaurant of the neighborhood. Very few minutes sufficed to complete the task which had brought them there, The box, which, as the boy had said, had the key in it, was thrown open and its contents quickly ex- amined, To the surprise, and soraewhat to the disap- intment, of the onlookers, no money was found nit. It was half-filled with papers, but among these was not a coin and no vestige of a bank- ** You've missed the pile, boy,” said the police- man, with a laugh, ‘Hit the wrong package. Didn’t look far enough.” | ‘‘ Look far enough!” cried the boy, indignant- ly. ‘*I saw what looked like hell-fire—and I reckon that wasfar enough. A feller don’t look far in a blaze like that. NorI don’t swallow your idear, nohow, ’Twixt you and mel’vea notion that Mr. J. P. C. is a fake. He’s wade to put up a job for something or other, I sooner see his money than hear tell of it. Had- n’t we best look through them papers?” ‘*No,” said Tommy Brown, as the boy had called the restaurant-keeper. ‘‘ Hancs off them papers! You've put this in my care, and this is He closed the box, locked it, took out the key, and handea it to the policeman, | ‘“You keep that. I'll keep the box. We've got no right to meddle with this man’s papers, ou be on hand to-morrow with the key. He’ll turn up by ey time, and we can pass over his roperty. s for you, young man, you come Les 2-9 too. No doubt he’ll reward you—as he ought to.” ‘Bless your heart, [ don’t want no reward!” answered the boy heartily. “If I’d saved the chap his fifty thousand, things ’d been different —if be had ’em, which I don’t take for gospel,” ue He shook his head and walked away, with an | air as if he took no further interest in the affair. ‘‘ A mighty sharp-cut and smart youngster that,” suid the policeman, with a nod of his head toward the gamin. ‘‘ A regular Bowery blossom,” answered the restaurant-keeper. ‘‘That boy knows enough now to set up a Wallstreet broker. The man that shuts up his eyes has got to use a big plaster,” Meanwhile the youtbful hero had left the res- taurant and was walking back toward the fire, whistling as he went, For some reason he seemed in high good humor with himself, for he broke now and then into little ripples of laugh- ter. ‘* Got the notion in my noddle that there’s fun ahead,” he said to himself, ‘* Wait until I see Dick and unload my bag of news. I bet he turns back his eyelids, I thought, somehow, I’d seen that chep before; but the J. P, C, nails if, If there ain’t pancakes on the fire then I don’t know beans.” By the time the boy again reached the locality of the fire, it bad passed its most interesting stage. All had been saved that could be, and the flames were now masters of the whole edi- fice. How many victims had fallen into their awful gulf would perhaps never be known, In less than half an hour more the floors had all fallen in, and the walls were tumbling—every fall sending up a great shower of sparks and flaméesinto thesky, The firemen were directing all their efforts to save the surrounding property —the hotel being far past saving. Leaving the locality, the lad strolled away toward his home, stili whistling gayly as he went, and occasionally, as before, breaking out into a laugh. He evidently felt highly pleased with his night’s work. The home of the youth whose adventures we have followed to this point was in one of the most modest sections of the great metropolis. Small as the house was, several families occupied it, but he and his mother—who constituted the family—were rich enough to have three rooms {o themselves, On reaching his own very small, but co bedroom, the youth unbuttoned his coat, whic he had kept tightly buttoned ever since leaving the ladder, and threw open his high-buttoned vest, As he did so, a bulky package fell out and dropped on the table! ‘*Tommy Brown’s got the box, but he ain’t of contentment, ‘‘This ’coon ain’t quite as green asa jay-bird, nary time, I didn’t climb up that ladder and jump into that fire so's I could play a Sunday School softy when I came down. Notmuch! I don’t believe there’s any fifty thousand in this, ’cause that fifty thousand isa fake; but it’s my notion it’s gut something in it that’ll ‘most make Dick Wister stand on his head and kick his heels into the air. -1’ve got it in my noddle that I’ve opened out a mighty promising trail to-night; and I’m going on it to- morrow ’fore the sun gets Ma. 2 Ten minvtes afterward the boy was in bed and fast asleep, not kept a moment awake by the fact that his face smarted and burned from the scorch- ing it had got from the flames, CHAPTER If, AN EYE-OPENER, Mr, RIcHARD WISTER, detective, sat in his office reading the morning paper. He was in his easiest attitude, with one foot on the table, the other on a chair, and his own easy-c tilted well back. From the pipe in his mouth oe of smoke came as regularly as from a loco- motive. | , In an opposite corner of the room, diligently employed in cleaning ‘his'shoes, which were cov- abe ae eipcame, of mud, Lrienge eee ne. well-got-up, neatly-dressed, a e-awake ap- pees Frank Melton, known as Detective an . : . ‘* By Jove, that wasn’t no slow go of a fire— that hotel blaze!” cried the detective, taking the pipe from his lips, ‘‘ And thirty or forty wretches gone under, it seems.” He rea ‘‘'The firemen did their duty bravely. Some hear, ‘‘'m a-listening,” answered the other, indiffer- ently. pF ‘“? A daring young fool of a boy:—to run u a ladder, and jump into a furnace to tins poor fora man who hadn’t the wit to save his own “ Hadn’t none to save,” growled Frank, now polishing briskly on his right foot-covering. ‘ got the whole job,” avowed the lad, with a grin ee on, - mighty daring acts. Here’s a bit now—d’ye > Frank?” | 4) , - ‘ : “* . ne ‘3 re ae a a