Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 841 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

Tt ct — aoe . = et eee - ee Ta Se St I tt i = TT I “ t Ps ~i* Messenger Max. sition was It was a tight squeeze, and his he finally necessarily terribly cramped, bu succeeded in getting his body entirely in, and ** Well, I don’t. I wouldn’t deny it to you if I did,” ‘*T think you would, Kil.” pulled the little door shut just as Prince a ‘Well, drop it! You have a right to your peared upon the edge of the wharf with a pair | ideas as well as anybody else, I suppose, and of oars over his shoulder. : whether they’re right or wrong is your affair— Then Max realized the danger he was in. oid ho are these fellows now in your nest?’ ‘* Two friends of mine,” CHAPTER XII. ‘** Laying by for a squall?” FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH, ‘*Exactly—a pretty big one, too; liable to THE single hair which suspended the sword | wreck ’em if they should be caught out in it.” over the head of Damocles was not more frail ‘* You must think a lot of them to take them and uncertain than the little canvas door | to your nest.” which stood between our hero, Max, and death. ‘**T don’t, but I'm very fond of their boodle, He realized it fully while Prince was helping | and theyv’e got lots of it.” Kilian Graff into the boat. He knew that a ‘* So they’re paying you for the privilege?” man who would take so many precautions to ** Well, rather! I haven’t turned philanthropist keep a secret inviolate from a friend and every- | just yet. I’ve always been able to take care of day companion, would not hesitate to kill a | myself, and several times I have protected stranger who might have discovered, or be | others as well, but they always have to pay for about to discover, the one thing that he wished | it—and they know it.’ to keep so entirely to himself, ‘“*That’s all very well, Prince, but some fine In a few moments both men were in the boat, | day you’ll be cornered, and then the boys’l! turn Prince paki the oars, while Graff was seated, | on you, and if you’re not flush it'll go hard with still blindfolded, upon the stern seat, over the ul | locker that Max had first tried. He was er now that the other place had been locked, else he would have been directly under Mr. Mordaunt’s nephew. ‘*T say, Prince,” said Graff, after a moment or two of dead silence, ‘‘how much longer is this thing going to last, eh? You tied that cursed bandage so tight that my eyes are ’way in the back of my head now.” ‘‘ We are almost there now,” returned Prince, ‘‘So!” thought Max, ‘‘ he isn’t an earl, he’s a prince.” ‘t Where is this den of yours, anyway ? middle of the Atlantic Ocean?” ‘* Not quite; we’re almost there now.” Another silence for a moment or two, and then Graff spoke again, ‘Yo you think the boy, Pete, will keep his 2 ea and bring young Merry to-morrow ght ?? he asked, ‘Yes, I think so. He’s pretty mad about those nine dollars which he thought I was fool enough to give to Merry, and those youngsters don’t have much conscience when they get mad. He’ll bring him if he can.” ‘* What is your plan for coppering him?” ‘* Why, when he gets near enough, I’m just oing to haul off and give him one straight rom the shoulder, and then we can pick him up and put him in the cab at our leisure. See?” ‘¢ What do you think of him, Prince?” ‘¢T think he’s a young devil, and just about as smart as they're made.” ‘‘ Thanks,” thought Max, in the locker. ‘*Tell me just how you’re going to makea pile out of him, will you?” continued Prince, ‘*Why, don’t you see? The old man took a fancy to him some time ago—found out that he was smart, I suppose, and after he was shot that day, he lived long enough to make a will in which he gave nearly all Lis property to Judge Curtis in trust for this boy. ‘Well, the boy is to bunt down the fellows who robbed the old man of the forty-five, and bring them to limbo. See?” ‘* Yes, I see, Now,how are we going to make the boy fork over? That’s what puzzles me,” ‘‘Why, easy enough, Don’t you see that the money is all his, and only in the hands of Curtis as trustee? Young Merry has only to write a letter to the judge, which wecan get young Pete to deliver, if he proves trustworthy, in which he will say that he has been made prisoner by the yery people he is hunting after, and they de- mand a ransom,” , ‘‘ Suppose Curtis won't pay it ? ‘**He’ll be obliged to, if the boy demands it, He may kick, but that won’t make any differ- ence, for we can wait till he gots tired of that and comes down to business.” ‘‘Suppose the boy won’t write the letter— what fen q? éy h db make a sie t ose he won 2 Hell eee to, or be food for fishes.” Another expressive silence, finally broken by In the “Graft,” he said, ‘‘ who got the forty-five of man?” ne oo oatt know; wish I did.” ‘“‘ Who killed him, eh?” *¢ Don’t know that, either,” sullenly, ‘‘ Did you?” ‘You know I didn’t! what’s the use of asking such questions?”’ . ne I think you know who did,” ¢ ** "Yes, you.” p- you ‘*That’s all right, Kill. Ill take my chances, es the same, There isn’t a detective in New ork who hasn’t tried to shadow me sooner or later, and none of them ever made it out yet.” ‘Why not?” ‘* Well, because I always got onto them, and either threw them off the scent, or walked right up to the party, whoever he was, and told him that if he wanted to follow me, he had better go home and change his clothes, because I knew him in the rig he had on, see? I never was puz- zled but once.” ‘* How was that?” ‘* A young fellow from Boston got after me. I was suspected of complicity in a bank affair, though the fact is I had nothing whatever to do with it, except that one of the fellows who had was rusticating in my nest, ‘“Well, that young fellow got after me, and I tried three or four times to throw him off the scent, but he always bobbed up serenely, so one night I walked up to him and told him it was no use dogging me any further, ‘‘He laughed and said that he had about come to that conclusion himself and invited me in to Nash and Crook’s for a hooker, ‘‘ We parted there,and he was playing bill- iards when I left him, so I skipped across the city at a lively rate, taking every precaution that I knew-how. I got over the ferryall right and worked my way through the streets where I brought you to-night without seeing a soul, and after looking behind me and taking every care to see that I was not followed or watched, I pars this boat out from under the pier—I kept t in a different place then—and may I be pul- verized if that fellow wasn’t sitting on one of the seats, smoking a cigar as comfortable as could be, ‘* How he got there before I did, or knew how to get there, | don’tknow, He had the drop on me, of course, and I could not wriggle, only I re- fused to go any further, | ‘* Well, he made a proposition to me that I had to accept. Hesaid he knew that I was not concerned in the robbery, but that he was satis- fied J had got some of the swag and perhaps one of the fellows he was after in my care, ‘Well, the whole long and short of it is, that I had to give up the swag and the poor fellow to or in order to live in peace, myself.” Oo you mean t friend uo?” o say that you gave your “Well, not exactly. I had agreed to have him at a certain spot at a certain time, and I Bot there with him a few minutes before. Then kept my eyes peeled, and when I saw the fel- lows coming to capture their goose I just said to him: *** When you expect it least you are in the most danger, Don’t ask any questions, but just knock me down and run for it.”” ‘* Did he?” ‘Well, didn’t he? He knocked me senseless atoneclip, Hit me hard enough so that my story went all right, and besides I had a good art of the swag for them, as I had agreed. hey captured him afterward, but that wasn't my fault. ‘*Here weare. Slide down into the bottom of the boat, and duck your head if you don’t’ want to see star's blindfolded.” Max could hear the oars brought into the boat, and in a moment more, a grating sound told him that they were sliding under a wharf, ‘¢ Now pull off your bandage, Kil,” he heard Prince say. ‘‘ You're welcome to see all you 11 can now. - I Sit still while I make the boat ast. Max calculated that the boat had been crowd- ed fully fifty feet under the wharf before he felt. that she was made fast, and Prince said to his. companion: ** (‘ome on, old man,” Then he heard a noise like the striking of a match, and presently felt that the two men had left the boat, Pushing the door of the locker open ever so little, he protruded his head, and could just see, by the glimmer of light evidently made bya _dark-lantern, that the two men were making their way on foot under the wharf. ‘*Be careful where you step or you'll get a ducking,” he heard Prince say, and then he. crawled slowly from his hiding-place, and start- ed after them, first pausing. to remove the big shoes from his feet. He presently found himself on a narrow plank, and it was so dark that he was obliged to resort to his hands and knees as a mode of trav- el, for fear of making a misstep. The others, being in an upright position, of course got along faster, and were soon out of sight and hearing entirely. ax made his way steadily forward, however, wondering if he would lose the trail after all, but never once dreaming of giving up the chase. He had gone forward two or three hundred feet, when suddenly he felt the plank beneath ai ta ions with something beside his own weight, Then there came a flash of light, as if from a bull’s-eye lantern, just ahead, but it was evi- dently not aimed at him, for he remained undis- covered, But while he was congratulating himself for the: narrow escape, he again felt the plank trem- ble, and he knew that whoever was on the nar-: row pathway was crawling directly toward him, and taat if he moved * would surely be, discovered, What to do, he did not know. There they were, face to face, and only a few feet distant from each other, but the darkness was so intense that neither of them could see a thing. Max felt that his presence was not suspected, but he also realized that in another moment he would be discovered, while at any instant his unwelcome companion might draw the slide of his lantern, and thus reveal him, an easy mark. for a bullet. . | Nearer and nearer came the man with the dark-lantern, until the young detective could hear him breathe, In another moment they would be together inevitably, it seemed, and the boy’s heart beat fast, as he grasped the only weapon he had—a. little revolver—and waited for that moment toa come, ‘ CHAPTER XIiTI. IN THE NEST—A SURPRISE, WE left brave Max Merry ina very unenvi+ able position—upon his hands and knees on @ narrow plank underneath a wharf—he knew not where; and within a few feet of him, and pie instant coming nearer—although it was so dar that they could not see each other—was & man who he knew would kill him the moment he should discover his presence. W hat to do to escape the consequences of that visit the boy did not know, Suddenly, when they were but a few feet apart, the man stopped, and for a moment Max almost ceased to breathe, fearing that he had in some unknown manner betrayed himself, ‘‘ T cuess I’ve gone too far,” he heard a voice mutter, which he instantly recognized as belong- ing to Prince, and then he arose to an upright position and moved the slide of bis lantern, Luckily, however, he had turned around be- fore doing so, which made the light shine away from Max, Then Prince, walking cautiously, went back a. little way. ‘*No,” he muttered, “‘ I was right, or nearly so: it is the plank lam on. Yes, there is the e ,? : He took a few more steps and then stooped over, using his hght as if in search of some- thing. That he found it soon became evident to Max, for in an instant more the plank gave way be- neath him, and they both fell with a loud splash into the water below. The fall was six or eight feet to the water, and as the plank gave way at both ends at the same time, it was naturally both sudden and surprising; but the very suddenness of it prob- olele) q5) Cc com Cor