Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 374 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

6 “This way for up-town!” said the Jehu, springing to Gideon’s assistance. ‘‘ Take you to any hotel in the city, Best hack in town, sir. Move right off with one passenger.” Gideon Goldbird did not wait, but walked to the hack, tossed his valise inside, and sprung in after it. ‘*T guess I’m all right now!” ejaculated the Major’s man as the cab rolled away. ‘It war a long ride, but ’m hyer. What would ther police give ter know that Mr..Stephen Selkirk, of Denver, is Gideon Goldbird, once of this city?” He did not see the look that passed between the man in gloves and the cabman, as the vehicle moved from the ferry, nor did he hear the exclamation of the person left behind. If his sense of hearing had been extraordinary, he might have opened the door and leaped from the cab while it dashed up Cortlandt street; but he was congratulating himself over his safe ar- rival in New York, and again was bothered by no suspicions against any member of the human family. In due time Gideon was put down in front of one of the numerous mail hotels that dot the city, the cabman was paid and dismissed, and there appeared on the register, in a bold but unclerkly hand, the name: ‘‘ STEPHEN SELKIRK, DENVER, COL,” ‘‘ Hirst, a good night’s sleep,” said Gideon to himself; ‘‘ then to the business that brought me to New York. To-morrow Ill telegraph to the Major, in care of Sidney, the result of my in- vestigations.” He enjoyed several cigars before he went to bed. For half an hour he aired himself on the streets regardless of the police, and chuckled to himself whenever he thought that everybody believed him to be Stephen Selkirk, from Den- ver. Everybody? Watching him from the shadows of a tree near the hotel stood the man whose eyes had greeted him in the ferry-house, and when Gideon re-entered the building and did not come out any more, this person walked away with an air of satisfaction. “Safe for to-night, Gideon Goldbird,” he ex- claimed, ‘* We will see how you get along to- morrow. You have come to the wrong place, I fear, to carry out your master’s instructions to the letter.” One thing is certain from all this. John Leopard, of Broadway, had received the | telegram from Sidney. CHAPTER VI. THE LEOPARD’S CLAWS. GimErOoN GOLDBIRD slept late the following morning, as if his tedious journey had exhaust- ed him. There was no pressing need for early rising, so that if was eight o’clock when he got down to breakfast. ‘‘The Major is anxious for my telegram, an’ I might as well get the business off my hands,” he remarked to Stephen Selkirk, from Denver, as he left the hotel feeling ready for almost any adventure. ‘The old number on Mulberry will not be hard to find, if the trap is still in existence, and four years don’t make many changes in that part of the city.” Thoroughly familiar with New York, its light and dark spots, especially the dark ones, Gideon started off to find the place uppermost in his mind. Alveady the streets had many pedestrians, but they were all strange to him, although he looked about for some face he knew when he could boast of being a New Yorker. He reached Mulberry street in due course of time, and after traversing it for some distance, entered a two-story frame house of rather dingy exterior without knocking. ‘* Hello!” exclaimed a voice in the half dark- ened hall in which the man from Custer found himself, Gideon stopped and looked into the florid face of a very large woman who in tawdry gar- ments presented anything but an elegant ap- pearance. ‘‘ Mother Redbird!” he mentally exclaimed. ‘(She still inhabits the trap. Id like ter know how she’s managed to escape the police these four years.” The woman had come forward and was look- ing into Gideon’s face with a faint smile at the corners of her fat lips, and a queer twinkle in her eyes. ‘*‘ Welcome back to the old haunts, Gideon!” she suddenly exclaimed. ‘‘ Nobody is gladder to see you than I. How’s the Major—” “Hush!” interrupted Gideon lowering his voice as he clutched the woman’s wrist. ‘‘ ve known the walls of New York to have ears. I am Stephen Selkirk from Denver. ' I don’t know anything about the Major.” “ All right. I understand,” was the reply. “You are masquerading in other feathers, eh?” ‘“Yes, I want to see you, Julia” Mother Redbird as the woman was called led the way to a room adjoining the hall, and shut the door carefully behind Gideon. ‘* You haven’t changed much in four years,” she said as she parted the curwtin and let a flood | \y of light upon the Custerite’s face. ‘‘ The police have played merry Harry with the boys who didn’t go away. The most of them are residing at Sing Slng, and the cops have been looking for, Gideon Goldbird.” Gideon tried to laugh, but he soon went back to seriousness, ‘‘ Are we alone, Mother Redbird?” he asked. ‘‘ When did I keep listeners?” was the retort in insulted tones, ‘¢ Never,” said Gideon. a certain examination, it is!” ‘No. I am _ thick-headed this morning. What is it you want, Gid—Mr, Selkirk?” ‘¢T want to look into the place that was shut up one night four years ago, I am here to see about the fate of the man whom we once called Fred Ferret. I am under orders. I have taken an oath to look into the cell. I must do it.” ** Wouldn’t you take my word?” ‘*T would, but my oath! ‘You have been here ever since that night?” ‘‘ There was no occasion for me to move.” That settles it that he is still here!” ‘*But I must see for the “Tam here to make Ah, you can guess what ** Good! exclaimed Gideon. Major’s sake,” ‘* And see you shall,” was the answer. Mother Redbird led Gideon from the room to another part of the house. On the way she ia ten to get a candle and some matches re- marking that they would probably need both within a short time.” At length the woman unlocked a door which opened into a dark room where the candle was lighted after the portal had been closed and re- locked. Then Mother Redbird opened a trap in the floor and motioned Gideon down a flight of steps revealed by the candle’s flame. “The city ferret won’t prove very entertain- ing,” laughed the woman. ‘* You have come a long ways, Gideon, to look upon a moldy skele- ton. Do you know that it was four years ago this very night when he was fetched here by— a ! I need not name the men, You know ’ Gideon nodded, ‘Since then, but along while since, the bricks in the plastered arch became loose,” the woman went on. ‘‘ We made them secure, I thought.” ‘So you did, but time and dampness did the work. Ah! here we are. Look! here is the sealed- up doorway,” and Mother Redbird ushed the candle close to a brick wall as she ooked up and grinned in Gideon’s face, The man from Custer leaned forward and looked at the bricks for several moments with- out speaking. He could see the outlines of a doorway which at one time had been bricked up, making what seemed to be a solid wall. At the foot of it, however, the mortar had fal- len away from the bricks, but there was no evi- dence that any had ever been removed, “T think we can remove enough of these bricks to enable us to investigate,” Mother Red- bird said, setting the candle on the ground. “They are loose, sure enough,” and she re- moved one with little difficulty. Ten minutes’ work by the huge hands of the giantess sufficed to remove enough bricks to en- able a man to pass beyond the wall, and with a smile of satisfaction she looked at Gideon who held the candle during the operation. “The passageway to Fred Ferret is open again,” she said. ‘* You will have to go in your- self, Gideon. The hole will not admit a lady of my fairy build. Here; take the candle again and investigate.” Gideon Goldbird seemed to recoil a step when the candle touched his hands. He had reached his goal and stood within a few feet of an object terrible enough to make one’s blood run cold. He dared not think what might await him be- yond the wall; ho was almost ready to see the doomed Broadway detective step from the walled-up cell after his four years incarcera- tion, “ Afraid of the man you helped out of the world?” laughed Mother Redbird, derisively. “Did you come all the way from the Black Hills, Gideon Goldbird, to run froma few dry bones?” ‘‘ Give me the light!” exclaimed the man from Custer, as he snatched the candle from Mother Redbird’s hand. ‘‘ By the eternal fates! I al- low no woman to taunt me with cowardice.”. He stooped and thrust the light into the dark hole and then put head and shoulders through. A damp smell greeted his nostrils, but he con- tinued to advance. <A strange look came to the woman’s face while she watched the Custerite Gideon was relieved when he could straighten beyond the wall. He picked up the candle and moved it about in order that he might see the whole interior of the place. _ All at once a strange gasping cry parted his lips. ‘*My God!” he cried, os eberdee toward the opening. ‘Heavens! the man is living!” “ What's that, fool?” cried Mother Redbird. There was no teply Gideon Goldbird had reached the wall and was poeet heavily against it with a ghastly face and eyes that seemed ready to burst from his head. Major Blister, the Sport of T'wo Cities. The old cellar had a living tenant! ‘* It’s the same old trap, Gideon Goldbird, ha,, ha!” hissed the man, who had come out of the darkness into the candlelight. ‘*‘ You bave come a long ways to inspect your own trap—to. get caught in it, too! Ithink for your own good that you had best have remained at Custer, What is your opinion, Gideon?” ‘*In Heaven’s name who are you?’ Gideon. ‘*Not the man you helped to wall up in this cellar four years ago to-night—that is certain!” laughed the man. ‘‘Guard the entrance cut there, Mother Redbird. You know the com- pact.” A thrill passed over Gideon’s frame. ‘* T have been betrayed!” he murmured, ‘‘ The she devil is in league with this man!” ‘*Come, Gideon; we have work -to do here,” the sport’s confronter went on, with the candle in one hand and a revolver in the other, ‘‘ You have come all the way from the Black Hills to. see this walled-up cellar. Major Blister sent ou to New York to look at the skeleton of Fred ‘erret, the Broadway detective. I want you to tell me what has happened in Custer.” “You ought to know since you knew I war comin’ here,” said Gideon. ‘ By the holy stars} Pll get my hands on that woman’s throat yet.” ‘Which woman?” quietly asked the man. ‘The one who followed me to Sidney and sent you the warnin’ telegram.” The reply was a smile which told Gideon that: he was right. He now saw before him a small table and two: stools, and at the command of the strange man he dropped upon one of the latter. ‘This seems to be a deep, double game, Gideon Goldbird,” the man went on. ‘* Now, sir, 1 want the late startling events in Custer— those events that started you on your journey. I may know more than you think I do. Go on.” Covered by the cocked revolver and watched like a hawk by the cool eyes of his captor, Gid- con told all he knew which was not much as the reader knows, for he left Custer City ignorant of the work of the iron dagger, He was listened to without being interrupted.. ‘¢- You were to telegraph Major Blister the re- sults of your trip to New York?” said the man, Gideon nodded. ‘*You were to send a certain message?” ‘** Perhaps.” ‘Tf you found Fred Ferret’sskeleton here yow were to telegraph—what?” ** ¢Still here.’ ” ‘*Tf you should find not it!” ‘“ ¢Missing.’” ‘* All right,” said the stranger with a smile turning to a bit of white paper which, when turned over, proved to be a telegraph blank, ‘‘ You will write the message, Gideon.” The man from Custer took up the pencil that lay beside the paper. ‘‘ We'll send the first answer mentioned,” the cool man said. ‘But it isnot true. Fred Ferret is not here.” ‘No difference! You are obeying me now,” was the reply. ‘‘ Write, ‘Still here’ for Major Max Blister. I will see that the message: goes off on, time.” : Gideon wrote as directed and pushed the paper toward the person who was eying him with an expression of triumph. He saw the dispatch folded carefully with one hand, and deposited in a waistcoat pocket. ; ‘Now, Mr. Goldbird, I will leave you to your reflections,” continued the man. “In this hole?’ exclaimed Gideon springing said u * MC Why not?” laughed | the man who had stepped to the opening. “‘ Four years ago you helped to wall up a fellow-being in this Black Hole. It is only the vengeance of time, Gid- eon. This is one of the houses of New York from which no noises escape. You know this as well as Ido. You have obeyed Major Blister,, the Sport of Two Cities too well for your own rood perhaps. Are the boys all well? How are Poker Perry, Night-Owl Oll and Wild Alaric getting along? And the Major himself? Good- by, Gideon. When Max Blister gets your dis patch he will’ breathe freer and thank you for a faithful performance of duty. Aha! good- night!” The speaker stooped, and passed quickly through the opening. For a second Gideon stood spellbound in the center of the cell, then with a porrifying cry of rage and despair, he leaped forward. { “If you et to come out you will lose your brains!” said a stern voice. “‘ This game in New York belongs to the one that is to be played in the Black Hills. Go back to your table, Gideon Goldbird, and think of the man seized at midnight four years ago, and walled up inthiscellar. This trap sends out no sounds, you know. A yell will die within its walls, Meet your fate like a man, my red-handed Cus- ter sport. You'll never get tochoke the woman who prepared me for your reception!” Gideon Goldbird fell back with a nameless. shudder along his bones. The candle disap- peared and he heard a voice say: ‘This is the first one of the five!” Then his senses seemed to swim and he turn= comicbooks.c as