Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 854 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

- it ew at = . é PO in, ll < « oo " a - ; Se. et 2 oo ' « * - — ‘. ~ ell - Fy tly | , ee me oe ie << ~— 10 As Lucy looked at her she caught the old Uncle Sam’s Detective in Chicago, ————— of Mother Halket upon an easel, draped lady s eye, and was then rather surprised to | tastefully with a silk scarf. see that she was signaling to her to open the window. | ‘‘ Excuse me a minute, my dear, and I will bring you a cup of tea. I will find out The old lady disappeared into the hotel, | whether your father is at home, at the same and Lucy said to herself that this was as | time,” said Mother Halket, kindly, as she strange an adventure as she had met with in | left the room, with a cheerful smile. the last twenty-four hours, and she had had rather an interesting time since the appear- ance of Smasher Jim and Ready Ralph in Sangeville, too. She was still thinking over the strange circumstances that had brought her to Chi- cago, when there came a knock at the door, and the bell boy ushered into the room the old lady, who had told the people in the office that Miss Hawkins was a dear friend, and that she was waiting for her visitor to go up. ‘My name is Mrs. Halket,’’? commenced the old Jady, as soon as she had seated her- self, which she did with as much self -pos- session as if she were in her own home. “Yes?” said Lucy, more mystified than ever, for she had never heard the name. ‘‘ Your father is in the city, and he wants to see you,” were the old lady’s next words, uttered with perfect coolness. The girl sprung from her seat in arfagony of excitement. ‘*My father? Where is he? Is he all right?” ‘No. He is not exactly all right. I am afraid he has fallen into bad hands, There is & young bunco-steerer, known to the po- lice as Ralph Rapier, who is leading him off, and who will get him into jail as sure as he is alive, unless you can persuade him to quit the young man’s company.” ‘*{ know Mr. Rapier to be an honorable gentleman, who is in the employ of the Gov- ernment, and who would be the last to lead my poor father into evil doings, evenif he could do it,” ‘*Ralph Rapier is a pretty smart young man. I see he has deceived you entirely. Will you come with me, and allow me to cenvince you that he is not sucha good man as you think he is?” ‘* He told me to keep quiet, and as soon as he heard anything he would let me know,” murmured the young girl, doubtfully. “Of course he did. That was his game. No doubt he will bring your father to you after a while, but he will have got him into some scheme by that time, so that he will be completely in the power of Mr, Rapier, who will threaten to expose him to the police if he kicks over the traces. See?” ‘* You say you can take me to my father. Where is he?” ‘At my house. I keep a. fashionable boarding-house, and both he and Ralph Rapier came there to-day. I knew them both, although they did not know me. I have friends in Sangville, and have often been there. I know your father keeps the store and post-office, and I heard the other day that he had bought the Sangville Herald, and was making avery good paper of it, He is a smart man, is Hiram Hawkins,” The result of Lucy’s conversation with Mother Halket was that, in ten minutes the two were seated in a closed carriage, and be- ing driven in a roundabout way to the counterfeiters’ den on the West Side. When the curriage stopped, and the old lady, getting out briskly, first paid the driver and dismissed him, and then opened the door with a latch-key, Lucy could not help thiaking the house looked like anything but a fashionable residence, Into the hall and then into the front room, and Lucy found herself in a comfortably furnished apartment with a bookcase, filled with standard works of science, art, travel and fiction, against one wall, and an open piano, with several pieces of sheet-music on the desk occupying the other. There were pictures artistically ar ranged upon the walls, and a large crayon we 8 | | | ee serene Once outside the room, Mother Halket noiselessly locked the door, and went into he back room, where two men were busy t counting and packing in paper, sheaves of | t he newly made ten-dollar counterfeit bills. ‘‘ Keep watch’on the front room, boys. I have the daughter of that hayseed post- master from Sangville in there, and I am go- ing to keep her there for a while.”’ ‘* What for? What is the use of having a woman in the house? She will only cause trouble,” ‘* You ass!” was the polite reply of Mother Halket. ‘‘ Thisis not a detective. Ihave known this girl by sight for years. She used to go to the Mountview Academy, out near Jackson Park. Besides, itis Smasher’s ' Se orders to bring her here, so that he will have | a better hold on the old man. See?” Mother Halket was a cautious woman, as a rule, but she had been very neglectful in one respect since coming into the house. While she was talking to the two men in the back room, Lucy Hawkins was looking at her through a small peep-hole by the side of the piano in the parlor. This hole was meéant for the convenience of the people of the house, and was generally carefully con- cealed. How it came to be open now Mother Halket could not have explained. But there it was, and Lucy not only saw, but heard, everything said by Mother Halket aud the man to whom she was talking. As we have seen, Lucy was a bright, self- reliant girl, and as soon as she realized that she was in the very counterfeiters’ den that talph had told her about, she made up her mind to get out. When she found that the door was locked she was not surprised, after what she had heard in the back room, She did not waste time in lamentation, but ran to the window. Here she found that ingenuity had been used to prevent the escape of any one who might be confined in this parlor prison, Although the window frames looked like ordinary wooden sashes, she found that they were really of iron or steel, which, as the panes of glass were much smaller than usual, made escape that way impossible, the win- dow being fastened down with a complicated fastening that could not be moved except with a patent key. Her first thought was to smash one of the panes of glass and call for assistance. But there were two or three objections to this. Oné was that Mother Halket and her assist- ants would have come into the room and perhaps have placed her in a more secure and much less agreeable prison. Another was that she perccived there were two sashes to the window, that outside being at, least two feet distant from the inner one, form- ing a bow window, so that if she were to break a pane of glass inside, she could not touch the outside window, and she would have been no better off. “That will not do, Now, how shall I get out of this awful place? For get out of it I will, I must warn my father, and frustrate their schemes somehow, If only I could see Ready Ralph! What a fool I was to go any- where in this city with a stranger, even if she did look so thoroughly innocent as this terri- ble old woman!” : While she was blaming herself for her in- discretion, Lucy was looking through the windew at the street, thut was almost de- serted now, for it was nearly midnight, and most of the houses were factories or offices. Suddenly she started and could hardly suppress a cry, : Coming along on the other side of the street, were two men whom she recognized » —_—_ OO ee eC e i 7 | pay Jha od ae ep, 4 a _ ~ mre , | % J | ger. at once as her father and Smasher Jim. The counterfeiter was holding the arm of her father, and appeared to be half dragging him along, while talking earnestly to him. They were coming to the house, and in arr- other minute, she heard the front door open, and her father’s voice in the hall, in tones of remonstrance, Now Lucy could restrain herself no lon She looked hastily around the room for something that she could use as a battering- ram, and saw the piano stool. That would do. Seizing it by the feet, she swung it over her head, and dashed it against one of the panels of the door with all her force! The heavy stool went through the wood as if the door were of paper. Again she swung the stool and again she dashed it through the other panel. She had swung it for another blow, when the door was thrown open, and Smasher Jim seized her by the shoulders, and, with brutal strength, threw her to the floor, senseless! The next moment the stool was in the hands of Hiram Haw- kins, and being aimed at Smasher Jim’s head with such a true aim that it would surely have ended his career there and then, had not Mother Halket wrenched the formidable weapon from the postmaster’s hand, and swung him around with such force that he fell with his head against the wall, and lay, unconscious, by the side of his daughter, CHAPTER VIII. A RESCUE AND A COMPACT. A surrex of horror, that could be heard above the multitude of noises of the fair, arose fromthe Midway Plaisance as Ralph Rapier lost his balance, and went down from the beam on the great Ferris wheel, one hun- dred and forty feet above the ground. As he lost his balance he saw the grinning face of Rufe Rourke above him, and even distinguished his hoarse growl of ‘* Good- by!’ Then, in a flash, he seemed to become per- fectly calm and his wits were as bright as if he had been standing on the ground, among the people, who were waiting for him to fall, But he did not reach the ground immedi- ately, as they feared andexpected. His feet had caught in some of the network of rods and butts and he was actually hanging, head downward, by his toes. He was three feet below the beam, swing- ing toand fro with the momentum given him by his fall, and every moment it seemed as if his feet must release their slight hold, and let him down. It was a fearful position! What Rufe Rourke was doing he could not see, but he heard the voices of people be- low and around him, on the ground and in the cars, telling the man to let himself down and save his companion. But, Rufe Rourke took no notice. The wheel had been stopped, and the hardly per- ceptible jarring felt while it was in motion had ceased altogether. Save for the voices of those who cried to Rourke to assist the man who was apparently doomed to certain death, all was Peery still, and it seemed to Ralph as if the stillness were super- natural. Then came a mighty yell of ‘ Bravo!’’ and Ready Ralph knew that some one was mak- ing an effort to save him, en the young man fell, or, rather, was. pushed off the beam by Rufe, Smasher Jim could not repress a slight cry of satisfaction, The only person who noticed this ebullition of satisfaction was Hiram Hawkins, and, like. an inspiration, he knew what it raeant. This. was a cold-blooded murder, and the victim was to be his young friend, Ready Ralph! Not if he knew himself. The conductor of the car was looking out.. of the window, and was there*ore not watch- ing his passengers. At that time there was. no wire netting over the windows, and Hi- ay! os >- IN eer v ole aly a - 5 K Y, . : mt 4 - te: co | - r ‘ ty - + Ss » wen ' “=r . - 0 *