Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 543 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

- a te So Se or es 10° Dodger Dick’s Double. ‘‘ Faithful? He knows enough not to be other- wise,” Ge hissed. ‘*‘ Let me catch him playing us ials»—let me even suspicion him, aH 4 some- body will go out like that!” and the City Her- cules snapped his fingers in the listener’s face, ‘* He’s done us good service so far, count,” ‘* Very good.” ‘* And if he finds Lucy at Bess Bullion’s to- night he’ll deserve a big reward,” ** He will get it, too!” cried Foxcraft. ‘*‘ Tony Ted is smarter than his double, Dodger Dick. What a team of young sleuths the two would make! But they will never work together, for they don’t like one another very well, Rival- ship will always keep them apart. Ted told me about the restaurant scene where the dock fer- ret declared he would rake in the five thousand dollars reward when the game was played out. But I hardly think he will, do you, Noxie?” and Foxcraft leaned back in his chair and burst into a triumphant laugh. Meantime the boy double, faithful to his pro- mise to the two men, went back to the Bowery. ‘**T half believe that Bessie has a new secret,” said he to himself. ‘‘Sbheseemed very anxious to know if I knew Dodger Dick, and it took some tall talk to satisfy her. I don’t think I succeeded altogether. Bess is a woman’ who suspicions easily, and I know she doesn’t like a hair on Dodger Dick’s head, What is the new secret she is keeping? Iam going to her place, and I may make a discovery before I come away.” Tony Ted, the boy double, did not attempt to effect an entrance in Bessie’s house by the front way. He plunged into the alley that ran past one end of the building, and soon found himself in the cramped back yard attached to it, It was not Ted’s first visit to these premises, for he went straight to the door of a shed-like back building, and opened it by pulling a cord 1k eatin along the weather-boarding over- ead, He crept noiselessly into the building, which was as dark as Egypt beyond the threshold. To get into the house without its tenant’s knowledge was the idea uppermost in the boy shadow’s brain, The second dcor yielded with a little more trouble than the opening of the first had cost, and Tony Ted was fairly in the house of the Bowery fortune-teller and fence. He had reached a room well filled with many articles of furniture that could have been dis- pensed with. ‘* This is Bessie’s store-room,” thought the boy. ‘She has fixed it up on purpose to hood- wink the police and—” Tony Ted sogped abruptly, for a door was thrown open abruptly, and before he could spring behind the nearest shelter he stood be- fore Bessie herself. One look seemed to be enough for the woman. ‘* Still in the cage, my bird!” she cried, “Now, Dodger Dick, Pll let you feel the claws of Bowery Bess!” And the next instant Tony Ted felt two hands at his throat. CHAPTER XI. A TIGHT SQUEEZE. THE boy double did not have time to cry out and tell the enraged woman that she had com- mitted a terrible blunder. His eyeballs seemed ready to start from his head, and Bowery Bess and everything else in the hall swam before his sight in wild con- fusion, The woman’s grip continued to tighten at the boy’s throat, and when she suddenly released ic? fell like a dead weight at the foot of the wall. ‘TI guess you'll not try to escape from my cage any more,” laughed Bess, ‘*‘ You may bea shrewd tracker, Dodger Dick, but you can’t outwit Bess Bullion. Now when Lawyer Cope- land catches Tony Ted and brings him in, I reckon I can devote all my time to him—if ’m paid enough for it,” added the woman with a grin, {f Bowery Bess had looked at the right arm of the boy who had succumbed to her heartless cluteh, she would have made a thrilling discov- ery, but instead of doing this, so certain was sbe that she had caught the right party, she took up the body and carried it down the steps which led to the basement of the building, There was no sign of life about the old fury’s victim, and Bess laid her burdcn down without any gentleness and shut the heavy door after her when she went away. ‘‘In fortune’s name, where am I?” cried a voice in the darkness of the cellar some time af- ter Bess’s departure. —s 7 ; ’ : : “d «, ‘s 7 f ¥ * v* “ : sig esicbue, eid ey Cai IPF arse ome ee ae? Ln » F, 7 = >. SA 2 » a [<= + on , 7 - des, 3) ~_ - S-- ‘* My throat is as sore as ° a boil, and my head spins. What happened to cause this? Let me try to think for a minute,” The speaker leaned heavily against a rough stone wall, damp with cold moisture that clung to his hand and had a disagreeable smell. ‘*T recollect now. Bowery Bess had me by the throat the last thing I remember. She mis- took me for Dodger Dick. It isa fatal resem- blance, and came very near finishing me. From what she said they must have had the wharf rat penned up in the house, and [ got in just in time to be taken for him, Idon’tlikethis. But { must get out of here as soon as possible and by some means or other.” Tony Ted soon discovered that he was a pris- oner in a cellar which had a closed window and one door. The door was shut and securely lock2d so there was no escape in that direction, and he was ob- liged to depend on the window. After an hour of unceasing work with his hand, he had no tools at nis command, the boy double succeeded in loosening the window enoug to give him a seanty passage out, Drawing himself up to the little casement he began to squeeze through the aperture. It was very hard work for Tony Ted, probably the hardest of the kind he had ever bad, The win- dow frame was very small, and his body was too large to accommodate itself to it without great effort, He tugged and sweat over the labor until after prodigious efforts, he drew himself through and crawled upon the sidewalk beyond the hole, ‘Fortune favor me with no more such squeezes,” ejaculated Ted eagerly filling his lungs with the cool night air that rushed into them. ‘I owe all this to you Bowery Bess, and it isn’t by your grace that I’m alive to crow over this victory. You won’t get another opportunity to mistake me for Dodger Dick. Ill see to that if I get half a chance, and [’ve got more than that I think!” A minute after his escape Ted Tompkins was bounding away asif eager to put the greatest possible space between himself and the Bowery den in the least possible time. In his efforts to squeeze through the cellar window he had almost deprived himself of his garments, and he wanted to reach a certain place where he could effect a change. ‘‘Here! what has happened? You’ve been fighting again.” With the utterance of these words Tony Ted felt a hand catch his sleeve, and he stopped and looked into the face of Dodger Dick! It was a startling encounter for the boy double, and for a moment his eye gleamed madly and he jerked away and assumed a bel- ligerent attitude, ‘“Tt was all your faalt!” he suddenly cried, taking a sensible view of the sitnation and break- ing out into a good-natured laugh. ‘My fault? How so?” ‘T can’t tell you just how, but if it hadn’t been for mistaken identity, ’d have decent clothes on my back just now.” ‘‘Where did you come from?” asked the Dodger. ‘* From where you have been, I suppose.” A thoughtful light filled the dock ferret’s eyes, ‘‘Tbhen you must have been taken for me by the old she tiger,” said he, ‘* That’s just how it was,” was the reply. | ‘* You did not fare very well at her hands, I take it?” ‘¢T should say not!” and Ted ground his teeth at thought of his treatment by Bowery Bes:. “T say again it was all your fault, Dodger Dick. Why can’t you look like some one else?” ‘“ Why can’t you ?” Tony Ted was about to move on, remember- ing that he had to report to Foxcraft and Noxie, but Dick kept him back, ‘We ought not antagonize one another in this case,” the wharf spy said, ‘‘1tisall for justice. Somebody has been defrauded by a robbery, and if you really want to see right triumph, you ought to help me if you can,” The effect. of these wordson the boy double was curious, He twisted uneasily in_his rags with the keen eyes of the Dodger upon him, and hardly knew what to say. ‘¢- You told me at the restaurant that you were going to win,” he finally replied. ‘* So I did.” ‘Do you mean it yet?” “<5 do,” ‘‘T admire your pluck, Dodger, but you ean’t win without help. It is utterly impossible. am talking from what [ know, and when I say that you can’t recover the missing papers with- out help, you can’t, and that’s the end of it.” SS comicbooks.com “That is what you say, Tony Ted,” answered the Dodger. ‘‘ Tt is what I know!” ‘*T see what you mean. I will fail?” There was no reply, but the boy double drew his figure up and looked a little wise. ‘*Do you want me to ask you to help me?” continued Dodger Dick, ** if you did mebbe you wouldn’t get a favor- able reply,” came the answer prompt and em- phatically. We'll see who ** All right, laughs last.” Tbe Dodger stepped to one side and looked at the boy to whom he had given passage down the pavement, ‘* Do you mean that?” asked Ted, hesitating. ** Every word of it,” ‘Who put you on this trail?” ** No one.” ‘* Not Lucy Lukens?” sé No ” Unless you help me, Pass on, Tony! as Nor the young man, her lover, who some- times meets her in the Park?’ sé No,” ‘““You’re after the five thousand dollars, then?” The young double was silent for a moment during which time he studied Dodger Dick closely. ‘By Jove! I like you if you do get mein pickle sometimes,” he suddenly exclaimed, ‘‘ l’d like to help you, bounce me if [I wouldn’t, but I can’t. Dm in a fix to know a good deal, but yet not to give you any assistance. You want to keep on the trail, Dodger. Mebbe you'll strike it rich some time. I guess. this is as far as I can go. We won’t be enemies, but I’m bound to keep you from getting the best hand in the game if I can. Don’t think hard of it, Dodger. Here’s my hand on it, anyhow.” There was something in Tony Ted’s voice which sent Dick’s band forwaid like a Jack from the box, and the boy doubles shook cor- dially over the sidewalk stones, All at once Ted jerked his hand away, and, with a hasty good-night, sprung aside and dis- appeared. “That’s a quick shoot,” murmured the boy detective. ‘‘I see now, more than ever before, that Tony Ted is in the employ of the street iant and his short companion, They’ve got im 1n their clutches in some manner, and that is why he can’t give me the clew which he cer- tainly holds. Is he not going to them now? I recollect that I once followed the pair to a cer- tain house which I have since ascertained to be their quarters. Ill goto it by a short cut and see what I can,” In another minute the Dodger was some dis- tance from the scene of his encounter with Ted, cad he was not following in his young double’s wake, As for Ted he did not stop until he had enter- ed a plainly-furnished room, from a wardrobe in one corner of which he took some clothes which he exchanged for the sorry-looking ones he wore. : ‘‘ T look a little better now if Idon’t feel very ood,” he chuckled. ‘‘ I hope it'll be a long time efore Ihave another experience like the one I’ve just passed through. Hang it all! I more than half wish I could pep Dodger Dick, for the whole scheme is against the girl Lucy. But I can’t help him, but, on the other band, ve got to help keep him from finding out too much. This is a queer world. Well, I would call it such at any rate.” When Ted had finished dressing he left the room and hurried from the building. Ten minutes later he reached another room several squares from his boarding-house, It was quite SeDty and not lighted up. ‘‘ Nobody at home,” thought the boy double, dropping intoa chair, ‘‘I think l’ve earned a little rest after my adventures. The count or Noxie will show up presently, and then J’Jl re- port. He leaned back in the chair which bad ample arms and a soft cushion, and as the table sug- gested a good foot-rest, he elevated his feet and proceeded to wait. : It was not Tony Ted’s intention of going to sleep, but he yielded unconsciously to the woe- ings of. stuumber, and before twenty minutes passed he was oblivious to his surroundings. ‘* Here! what does this mean?” The voice that spoke was harsh, and the hand that fell upon Ted’s shoulder seemed to have the power of a trip-bhammer. ath The boy double sprung out of the chair with a startling cry, and stared, while he gasped, at the man who had disturbed him, 7». ~~ Pe me ee PL a *% . ‘ ”