Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 905 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

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It was a picce of parchment, a bit longer ‘than one’s hand, and bearing evidences of age and much folding. ‘* What say ye now?” | The hands of Tolliver shut madly and he glanced at his partner. . ‘* He's robbed Saul!” he whispered. Hunk's response was a little nod, but it wis enough. He understood. | ‘‘No buy in this crowd. MReckon [’ll try ‘the captain himself.’” Golliday turned toward the edge of the ‘porch and Tolliver clutched Hank s arm. ‘‘If he tries that ic winds up some one’s -career,” he hissed. The crowd looked at Golliday with vary- ng remarks and his big figure was secn ‘sslouching across the Square like one certain that his star was in the ascendant. ‘‘Quick! to the cap’n’s,” said Tolliver. ** By the short way back of the Plaza.” » The two men fell back and vanished sthrough the rear of the Black Eagle. They covered the distance to the nabob’s house in three minutes and rushed through to the captain’s favorite room, » ‘‘The fool is coming to sell fifty shares of Silver Water,” they exclaimed. The Nabob King’s look became’a stolid “stare. ‘*No, he couldn’t do that unless—” ** Well, he’s found and plundered Saul,” was the interruption. ‘‘He has the chart ‘and you know he couldn’t get it from no one ‘but Saul himself.” ‘**That is true. And he is coming here?” ‘* He said so at the Eagle.” Captain Mascot with the look of a fiend _-in his eyes went to the window and looked out, | He saw no one. The morning had broken bright and beautiful over No-Luck Camp, and a light wind stirred the trees scattered over the Square, Golliday was not in sight. ‘*Tell me about the offer,” said Mascot, coming back to his companions, Sd The King of Trumps did so, briefly as if ‘there was no time to lose, ‘‘Let him come!” cried Captain Mascot «defiantly, ‘£1 will wait for him here.” He laid a cocked revolver on the table be- fore him and looked toward the closed door. Minute chased minute and ten fled, but no ‘Gold Golliday. He scemed to be very slow, or to have abandoned his threat. ‘*He won’t come,” said Mascot. ‘‘ This man has shown the white feather.” ‘‘T don’t know. He looked cool and de- fiant at the hotel, and he certainly started thither.” ‘¢ But he has backed out.” It was evident that Tolliver Trumps did not regret Golliday’s non-appearance, Perhaps he did not care to face the man sat whom he had fired point-blank. ‘*Go out and see where he is,” command- -ed Mascot at last. ‘‘ We must settle scores with him now or never, He has found and robbed Saul. He has killed the right-hand man of your leader.” wy ‘** Saul certainly didn’t surrender the chart while life lasted,” remarked Hank. ‘*Saul of the Black Hand is dead!’ an- swered Captain Mascot, solemnly. — Left alone by the departure of his hire- lings, Captain Mascot looked at his revolver and frowned,.:: .. oy gs ee Out in No-Luck all was quiet. | * In a shanty near the end of the street stood -& man with his arms folded listening to a ‘woman who had been talking for five min- -Golliday had found Boulder’ Belle instead of Captain Mascot. ee Say “a She had just finished the story of her ad- andy tA a NR a eee ’ > - en * ee - venture at the Black Eagle, the empty couch and the gliding figures on the street, and the man who had listened was silent but inter- ested. ‘ Hawk and Redflint, eh?” he said. ‘Hawk and Redflint.” . ‘¢T know where the boy is?” ‘“You know?” cried Yinon, who had heard all. ‘‘ Do you think he fell into their hands last night?” , ‘They have surprised him. They made a swoop while I was on my way back. The boy is in the trap!” ‘¢ And where is the trap?” .‘ Where the famous Tebbs died. Deep in the bowels of the earth where life can’t be sustained a minute if all stories are not false. He is there.” Vinon at thought of this clasped her hands, and the face of Boulder Belle lost color. ‘Tt is too late now,” said the girl. ‘It is never too late for vengeance!” was the answer. CHAPTER XII. A FULL STRAND OF BLACK BEADS. Iv was not very far to the mouth of the old mine. | The fate of the renowned Captain Tebbs the founder of No-Luck was one of the stock stories of the region. This man, celebrated for his coolness, had met his fate in the heart of his own mine, ‘some said on account of foul air and others by the hand of a secret foe. True it was that he had been found dead in the mine, years before the opening of our story, and beyond this the mystery had never one. . Gold Golliday, with the nerve of a man tried and tested, quitted Vinon’s home. His face had changed color and his eyes seemed to emit sparks of fire. He took no roundabout trail to the old trap, ag went as straight to it as acrow would Tie he feared foul air he showed it not by any outward sign; if he dreaded a descent into the dark depths of Hank’s trap he let no one know. : At the mouth of the old trap he paused. He seemed to have been there before for all at once he passed the threshold of the place and vanished, Gold Golliday was intent on finding out what had become of the Boy Shadow of Idaho. In a little while he was groping his way down through the long chambers of the old place, . Bad air there was in profusion, but he did not seem io heed it. _ Here he stooped and crawled and there he walked erect with a cciling so high above him that he could not touch it with his hands, ! “This is a trap sure enough,” muttered Golliday in the darkness, ‘‘ It’s as bad as Tartarus with the lights out. Where am I? Oh, yes; here’s the line on the wall and here’s the triad which says ‘turn to the right.’ ” That man certainly knew where he was in the gloom, 7 gp 3 Hands were as good as eyes to him and his nerve was not deserting him. fa ie He turned to the right and went on. Now the path seemed to bear him down- ward into the very center. of the earth and now he was walking Ona level... : At last he seemed to have gone far, enough. s yet he had worked in darkness, but + 4 ' ; r now he changed the programme. “He struck a match on the wall and held it | in the heart of this old. trap. Where there ~~ -was death-there is now pure alr, and where above his head, then he threw it from him to see it sink down, down until. it burned on the floor of a cavern far below. . . “The fools may not have found out one thing,” said Golliday withasmile ‘* that.life can be .sustained in the Trap, .Nature has _ a, Time SE Sing Nugget, the Boy Shadow. _ an made some changes here within the last few years. She has chisled here and there, and ‘ where death used to lurk one can breathe, — The match. tells me so. The match that quietly burned out down there tells this story.” ; The lighting of the lucifer had shown Golliday the brink of a precipice. He now bent over it and struck another match. This one he dropped down like the other, and watched it as it lit up the cavern into which it fell. ‘[ thought so,” he exclaimed. Gold Golliday unwound from his waist a rope which, when wholly out, was long enough to reach to the bottom of the cavern. He made one end fast toa jagged rock, and then put his hands trumpet-like to his mouth. | ‘*Dandy?” he called. here!’ | At the third call something moved on one corner of the cavern and came staggering across the place. ‘* Blindfolded! I see,” cried Gold Golliday. “They thought they’d make it sure. But he’s there and I’m here, and that means business.” The blinded boy tried to look up, but all was dark to him. However, Gold Golliday’s voice guided — him to the rope, but there he stopped, ‘* Hands tied too, I see.” The old man felt of the lasso and nodded. The next moment he had crawled over the edge of the wall and was going down hand - over hand. He dropped beside Detective Dandy witb an exclamation of satisfaction. ai In au instant the bandage was removed and the boy ferret’s hands were free. “They don't know the trap any more,” grinned Gold Golliday. ‘‘They used to know it when it was death to be here; but Nature has taken a hand, and she ginerally does things up brown, you know, boy.” ‘‘T’ll go up first,” continued the Crusader, and suiting action to words he began to climb up the wall, after which Dandy Nug- get did the same. | “T’ve been successful,” said Golliday. ‘‘T overtook Black-Handed Saul. Fortune favored me, and I came up with the fellow right where I wanted him.” ‘‘ What happened, Golliday?” “T circumvented him, That’s what I went after, eh, Dandy?” The boy smiled, ‘‘T have it here—the parchment chart which belonged to Nabob Paul, and which was tuken from the iron safe in the mine after the murder, That chart shows the way to the lost mine of Silver Water, the one whose existence was Paul's secret, With it in his bands all the way, Black- Handed Saul would have made the whole band millionaires.” . ‘* But now—” | ae “Now,” and Golliday clutched Dandy’s arm. ‘‘Now they may be beggars, every one.” i . “Did you—” a i ‘‘ No, I didn’t do that,” interrupted Golli- day. ‘I didn’t go for, blood but for this ‘‘Dandy, I am ‘ »| Chart.” . « ‘‘ Then Black-Handed:Saul—” ‘« Never fear. game. He will never: serve Captain Mascot again.” ae att Ms “Dandy Nugget éaid no more, and the pair made their way to the mouth of the mine, ‘They thought they had fixed you, Nug- t, They do not know what time.has done |. ‘get, there was no breathing at all, one can fill his lungs with world.” ae" Ayn ‘‘ That is true; the air down in the cavern was pure.” 2 “ — ~ a i 3 _ ns That man is out,. of the the purest oxygen in the ~ ys iat