Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 262 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

10 _——— —— the ground in silence, so as to bring the sky-line before them, but could see nothing. Heavy clouds covered the heavens; there was no moon; and it was hard to tell where the ground ended and sky began. For all that, however, as they strained their eyes through the gloom they caught the outline of four figures marching close together, and Cronk pressed Buck’s arm. **Cops,” be whispered. Then they lay still and presently saw the four policemen halt, when one said: ‘It was here I heard it,” ‘*No. It was further on,” said a second, ‘’Sh!” said a third. ‘‘ Listen a bit.” The four mén stood stoek-still listening, and at last one suggested: “Let’s givearap. Mebbe he’ll answer.” ‘ Sh!” said the other again, ‘It’s a plant, I reckon. Keep close, boys. Those Murderer’s Row fellows are bad to meet of a dark night. Don’t rap” . Again all listened intently, and presently one of the policemen said in a low tone: “Tt’s a plant. I knowed it was. We've got to get out of this. Keep your barkers ready.” As he spoke they beard the sound of voices down in the direction of Murderer’s Row, many voices talking together, with the sound of run- ning pene and the four policemen instantly faced round, while Buck heard the clicking of pistol-locks. The Murderer’s Row gang had been roused by the unusual sound of clubs in their near neighborhood and had come out to see what was the matter. ‘Get into the road and halt ’em as they come up,” said one policeman, woo seemed to be in some sort of authority over the rest, and the -quartette filed into the street and stood there as the ruffians came running up, cursing as they came to intimidate their foes. Buck Jarvis laid his hand on Cronk’s arm and touched Nelson. **Give ’em blazes!” he whispered, and the faint clicking of their revolvers told the tale of what they intended to do. A moment later down came the men anda clear voice sung out: ** Halt!” They stopped as if by magic and began to mutter to each other running to and fro, with an air of hungry expectation that boded ill for the four men in the road. ‘Halt and the road, “ you try to come nearer. value your lives.” ** We don’t, curse ye! Take that!” growled a voice in the crowd. Tben came a dull thud, and one of the police- men fell, firing bis pistol. In another minute a wild, confused fray had begun, pistols flashing, oatbs and blows dis- tinctly audible in the darkness, and Buck Jarvis and his friends rushed in, yelling as they went the battle-cry of Murderer’s Row, — “* Hey, Crooks! Sock it to’em !” The contest was too unequal to last, The four policemen fought desperately, but in two minutes’ time one was down, and being fast kicked and pounded to death; the other three were running for their lives toward the high rocks, while their foes were running after them, including Buck Jarvis and his friends, set on killing the last man, if possible, to bush up the affair. One poor fellow was overtaken at the foot of the rocks and stunned by a stone at the back of the head, when the gang set on him and trar- pled him into insensibility, or, as they thought, unto death. The other two fled on toward the gas-lights on the avenue, pursued by a yelling crowd; while the Fitzzeralds and O’Gradys looke down from their rocky homes in wonder and not a little delight, shouting: ‘Give it. to’em, b’yes; give it to em!” Several stones struck them as they ran; but they gained the sidewalk at last, and their pur- suers were going after them, when a cry rose in the rear: ‘¢ Hi! more cops! Back—back!” They all turned to listen for a moment, and the loud ‘rap! rap!” of another policeman’s club sounded back in Murderer’s Row, asif a man were calling for help. ; ‘It’s a stall!” yelled Buck Jarvis. ‘‘ They’re iy eg the place. Hey,. Crooks, sock it to em o back!” called out. the man in e’re on duty and will shoot if Get back, men, if you Then away they ran back toward Murderer’s Row as hb as they could tear, expecting to find it full of their enemies. The nearer they came the louder and more frequent sounded tbe raps, while women were screaming and jabbering excitedly in the pre- cincts of Murderer’s Row. When they got to their houses all the women were on the doorsteps, calling to each other; but not a dark-lantern could be seen, nor was a policeman visible;'while the raps had entirely ‘‘ What is it? Where are they?’ shouted Cronk to one woman, who s on her door- step shading a kerosene lamp with ber hand. ‘*How the blazes do I know?” she retorted, Fighting Tom. with the amiable manner of her class. ‘‘ You’re a blank of a crook, you are, to be axin’ where the cops is, and they a-rappin’ all round us.” “ Over there!” screamed another woman, and she pointed out to the vacant lots opposite. ‘‘ That’s the last place we heerd ’em.” In the direction indicated rushed the inmates of Murderer’s Row; for it was essential to their safety to terrify the police, and they had too long enjoyed the immunity that comes from strength to give it up in a burry. But search as they might, no one was found in the empty lots; and while they were bard at it there, another rap echoed from the foot of the rocks of Shantytown, and started them off in that direetion. But Buck Jarvis now, for the first time, began to hang back, and said to Cronk: ** There’s some plant about this. Some one’s fooling us with his raps. There ain’t no cops here, and won’t be none till mornin’. You come with me.” And he took his comrades to the house which they had entered before, and tried to re-enter, To his surprise the doors were fast bolted, and the ladder with which he bad entered lay in front of the house disabled. Some one had sawed it in half at the middle, and then broken rung after rung, so that the machine was absolutely useless for scaling the windows. Buck swore venomously when he saw it, and told Cronk: ‘‘It’s the very snoozer we're after. Curse him! He’s inside now, and he’s the man that’s b’en foolin’ us with these raps. Call the boys up, and we'll go for him,” Cronk ran off willingly enough, while Buck, leaving Nelson to guard the front of the house went to the back, pistol in hand, and found the back garden door standing open, He Folted in, only to break his shins over a concealed wire, and fall on his face into a tub about half full of broken glass, on which he cut his. bands and nose badly, and nearly put out one mae Picking himself off the ruins, be went to the back door, resolved on vengeance, and found it fast locked and bolted. ‘* Aha!” muttered Buck savagely. ‘‘ You’re a smart snoozer, but jest one too smart for your own good. Ef you're in there, we’ve got you, I reckon.” He heard the footsteps of the returning men of Murderer’s Row and very soon they had sur- rounded the house, back and front, and were trying the doors and windows, They found all so firmly fastened that they had to sg an *‘ Alderman” to pry open the back door, but the said ‘‘ Alderman” did his duty so effectually that within three minutes after he was put to work they saw the basement passage open. The ‘“* Alderman” had ‘cracked his crib” in the true scientific style, being a compound be- tween a sharp pointed chisel and a crowbar of very fine steel, made with joints sors to give him an immense leverage when applied to a small crack. Buck Jarvis and his friends dashed into the house without any effort at concealment, and ransacked it from top to bottom. : They lighted all the lamps and explored it from garret to cellar, without finding a trace of any buman being there. Kate O’Donne!l bad spirited herself away or been carried off, and some one had taken a few articles of clothing in a hurry, but the birds had flown, and the question was, what had become of them? Buck Jarvis, with a sober, anxious face, headed the search and poked into every bole and cor- et as if hunting for something that he knew well. Whatever it was, he did not find it, and was cursing viciously to himself, when he heard a murmur among the men, and they began to run outside and call to each other, ‘* What is it?” he asked one as he followed, ‘* It’s that infernal ghost ara again,” an- swered the man, not without a slight tremor in his voice. ‘‘ Let’s get outer this.” Out they went on the sidewalk again, and soon heard the same ‘‘rap!/ rap/ rap!” of a club on the sidewalk, answered by another from a little distance off. : ‘ One sound came from near the rock shanties, the other from near Murderer’s Row, and the thieves und desperadoes of the gang were begin- ing to be demoralized. . Men who were ready to dare the gallows or State Prison at any time of night, were just be- ginning totremble under the influence of an empty noise they could not explain, As for Buck Jarvis he beckoned to Nelson, and they stole off across the lots silently. As soon as they were out of sight in the dark- ness he whispered: ‘‘Keep still. I'll ketch that snoozer yet. He’s a-hidin’ somewhere to fool us all.” CHAPTER XIV. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS. Wuen Harvey ran away from the house where Nina Somers had lived, with the tin box of papers in his hand, his first idea was to make for the police station, and he darted across the lots in that direction. He bad not gone a hundred yards, however, before he heard voices near him, and he in- stantly stopped and threw himself on the ground to listen. Pretty soon the voices became plainer. ‘* What’s up, cully?” ** Darned if know. Look out foras’iff. It was round here the shot was fired, and I heard a woman screech,” ‘** Who’s out to-night?” ‘None of the reg’lars. It’s only Nelse and Cronk went to obleege Buck Jarvis.” ‘* Buck be hanged. He ain’t a reg’lar crook.” “He's a good man to know, fur all that, cul- “A good skin, ye mean.” * Waal, if he’s a skin, it’s cause he’s got to ‘Why got to be?” ***Cause he’s got to be in with the cops, and that costs a pile, you bet. Buck’s the safest Jence in the country,and if he wants a crib cracked none of us won’t say no,” Harvey listened and looked to see the forms of the robbers if he could, but nothing yet crossed the faint sky-line. Presently said one: ‘*]#’s a darned queer job he’s on to-night; so he told Nelse.” ‘‘ What is it?” ‘‘Crackin’ this ’ere cribright near home. It ain’t worth usin’ a jimmy on it. There ain’t nothin’ in them cribs, not so much as a spoon that ain’t sham stuff.” ** That’s his biz, | reckon,” said the other, and then Harvey saw them at last, coming to the place where he lay as directly as if they bad seen him, two men with their hands in their pockets, Harvey grasped the slung-shot, which he had takea from Nelson, firmly in bis hand and slow- ly drew up bis legs for a spring. The .men came on toward him, when they heard a woman’s scream from one of the houses and both stopped and looked that way. ‘* Another racket,” said one, ‘‘ What’s the use of skeerin’ women when there ain’t nothin’ to be got for it?’ And then came the sound that had startled the burglars in the bouse and which equally startled Harvey and the men outside, The rap of tbe police club on a hard stone not three hundred yards off. Both men in the waste lots started and swore violently. ** A cop, by gum!” ‘Sock it to him!” And they instantly set off at a run in the di- rection of the rap, when one tripped over the tin box by which Harvey lay, and fell at full length on the young man’s legs, In a moment Harvey was sitting up, and in another moment the dull thud of the *‘neddy ” on the man’s head showed him he had one ene- my the less. He threw off the body and scrambled to his feet, when the otber man, who had at first been too paralyzed to understand what was going on, seeing a foe springing out of the gorand, re- covered himself with marvelous quickness and rushed at him to close, striking as be came. In vain Harvey tried to parry the blow, It met bisown weapon, and curling over it, disabled his wrist. The next moment the man of Murderer’s Row closed in and was plying his ‘‘ neddy” with the skill of an old fighter, so that his second and third blows took Harvey on the head, and the young man dropped on the earth like a slaugh- tered ox and Jay still. Then his antagonist muttered: ‘* Cooked your goose, anyway. Now for you, Mr. Cop.” And he stole softly off toward the spot whence the club rap had come, only to find, when he got there, no one on the sidewalk or anywhere around, The rough listened attentively and said to himself doubtfully: ‘Queer! darned queer!” He threw himself on the ground to listen and year round, when presently came the rap again own by the bouses where be knew Buck Jarvis was committing a bere! Wy, and the rap was almost instantly answered from somewhere be- yond Murderer’s Row, ‘* By gosh, that’s queer,” muttered the rough, whose name was Isaac Sharpley, better known as Slugger Ike, from his babits of bard hitting. He set off slowly and stealthily, skirting the street till he beard the rush of the three burg- lars and the approach of the unwary police- men, In the subsequent struggle and chase of the ill-fated men who had dared Murderer’s Row in the night, Slugger Ike took his part, but when it was all over and again he beard the mysterious rap down in Murderer’s Row he be- thought himself of the man whom he had slngged so neatly, and went back to find the hoot Hagen dite en be got there the young man was gone and is friend Limber Joe, who bad been with him, was beginning to wake up from the swoon EOMmIGDOoKS. Go SS —— os