Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 512 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Bi oe 12 word and their faces appeared ghostly in the light of the bull’s-eye. All at once Lolas shut his teeth hard and went at the door again. He was joined by Tiger, a man as strong as himself, but the combined strength of the two could effect nothing. ‘* Who did it?’ asked Tiger, his eyes roving to the dovor as if it was impossible to keep them elsewhere a single minute, ‘* Who but Boss Nevada!” was the answer. ‘Why did he not investigate?” ‘‘ Ask him!” cried Lolas frowning, ‘‘I am in no mood to discuss our situation. Tr there is no other exit from this place than the door, we are doomod to perish like rats in a trap.” ‘* We must find a way.” ‘We must or die!” For the next hour the three pards examined their prison with the minuteness of experts, They followed the little annexes to their ends, and sent the light of their lantern over every square inch of stone. At last their hunt brought them back to the closed door, It was as solid as before. There they stood and looked at the iron- rimmed door like wolves in a trap, ‘‘Cursa Boss Nevada! Curse No Man’s Ground!” cried Lolas, ‘‘ Was it todie likea trapped fox that [ came here in the service of the paralytic millionaire? I’ve served him only too well. I’ve kept the secret of Sbasta at the ge of my life. [know more than he thinks I[ 0. The last sentence drew the close attention of Tiger and his companion. ‘* What do you know, Lolas?” Tiger asked. ‘* No, gentlemen, not yet,” laughed Lolas, ‘I am not ready to pass in my checks and tell all I know.” ‘What else can we do, shut up here, with the will of a crazy man between us and escape? I know secrets as well as other people do—as well as yourself, for that matter, Lolas. I can write "te he wall a sentence that might give youa thrill. ‘* Ha! think you so, Tiger?’ And Lolas glanced from the speaker to the cold stone behind him, ‘*T have said so,” ‘*Try it! Yonder is the wall, Captain Tiger, and just behind you you'll find some pieces of ri korg stone that will make a mark on the sur- ace, ‘* What will you wager that I can’t astonish you, Lolas?” ‘* All the dust I have in camp, dust which I may never toich again, against yours in the same condition. A laugh burst from Tiger’s throat. “5 Byron! I accept!” cried he. ‘* Broad- edge Bill here is the witness, Something that will surprise you, Lolas? Well, here I go.” Tiger leant over a little heap of reddish frag- ments of stone, and selected a piece rather pointed at one end. ‘Throw the light away from the wall while I write,” said he to Lolas. “I can write in the dark. There, that will do,” For a little while the hand of Tiger moved pes improvised pencil across the surface of the wall, He was not a finished penman at any time, but when it came to writing on stone he was worse still. ‘Now with your light, Lolas!” he suddenly exclaimed, stepping back and throwing down the stone pencil. In an instant the lightof the lantern was tarown upon the wall, and Lolas uttered a cry as he saw written there: ‘‘The person who killed Macbeth the Goth is the wife of Colonel Bluff, the Nabob of Sacramento!”’ ‘*Come! I thought so!” laughed Tiger, as Lolas continued to stare at the writing on the stone. ‘* You are a beggar the moment we get out of here!” CHAPTER XV. WHO SHUT THE DOOR? SOMEBODY had shut the door of the crypt, thus entombing alive Lolas and his companions; but who had done the deed? Let us see. At the moment when the three men were ex- amining the contents of one of the little cham- bers within the subterranean room, a figure came down the main corridor of the mine and listened at the door that stood ajar. This person was a man with a splendid phy- sique. He had the herculean breadth of chest and the arms of an Ajax. If the light of the trio’s bull’s-eye had fallen on his face, it would have revealed eyes that had a wild, insane stare. : He had no hat. Whether he had lost it or @6t, or whether he carried it in the hand he held behind his back, is not essential to the movement of our story. Hisabundance of black hair, some of which fell over his shoulders, needed no covering. He could hear the voices of the three men in the crypt; he saw the beams of light flashed from the lantern, and while he looked and lis- tened, a strange tremor passed over his frame, Suddenly he fell back and caught the heavy iron door set in the rock. The mad eyes danced now, Certainly they were those of a maniac! ‘*T shut the rats upin thetrap. They will never get out while water runs,” said he, and then a devilish chuckle broke over his lips. The mext second the door shut with a thud, and twisting the nickel-plated knob with a snarl of rage, the man turned and ran toward the mouth of the mine, laughing under his breath all the while, Once out in the night with the starlight falling on his face, he stood revealed as Boss Nevada.’ The very looks of the man told that reason was trembling on her throne, even if she had not been deposed. He sent a wild look back toward the mine, then started off, and soon stood among the cabins of Satan City. Nobody had followed him, and no one saw him as he crossed the Square and looked into Shasta Sam’s den through the window, When he had looked a while, he sneaked off and disappeared. Five minutes afterward the door of a certain cabin was opened, and the prettiest face in the camp looked in. ‘“‘My God! Has he come back of his own accord?” exclaimed a woman’s voice, and while the words sounded, Opal entered the shanty. Before her stretched on the low and roughly shaped bedstead of mountain pine lay the figure of the autocrat of No Man’s Ground. Sound asleep! A lamp burned on the table above the cot and its light fell across the bed and on the swarthy face of the sleeper. Opal took the lamp and leant forward with it in ker band, For several minutes she gazed steadily at Boss Nevada, who was wholly unconscious of her presence, and while sbe looked, his deep, almost unnatural breathings filled the but. ‘* Perhaps [ had better let him sleep,” thought the girl. ‘‘I left him for dead on the floor of ‘‘ the office,” but here he is worth a dozen dead men, If Norgan knew this he would turn back on the way to Sacramento, But he can’t be reached now; he will have to go on.” Setting the lamp down Opal looked for the last time at the boss of Satan City and turned away. As she did so the bronzed hand which bad lain across the miuer’s breast dropped suddenly to the floor and opened. Something fell out and glittered in the light, The girl started forward with suddenly dilated eyes and picked the object up. She beld in her hand a Mexican button made of brass and stamped with the arms of that country. She could not suppress a smile as she gazed at the find, for a Mexican button was perhaps the last thing she thought of discovering in Boss Nevada’s grip. Opal took it to the light for examination, and in a moment she was bending over the table oblivious of everything else but the button. *“That this should be in Captain Nevada’s hand to-night is the strangest thing I can think of,” murmured she. “ Was it there when I found him lying in ‘* the office?” Did he tear it from the coat of the person who assailed him? Ah! can it he that [ have found a clew to another great episode of No Man’s Ground?” It was most natural for Opal to answer her last question in the affirmative. She was doin this in het’ mind while she unconsciously twiste the Mexican butcon between finger and thumb, when lo! the top came off, and she held a part ‘in either hand. If Boss Nevada had sprung to his feet Opal would have been none the less astonisked. She looked at the man of Satan City, wonder- ing if her unexpected cry would not disturb him, but he slept-on asif the last trump could not rouse him, The main part of the button, the bow], as it were, lay in her left hand. It was filled with something like tissue-paper, and Opal was not'long in taking it-out. | Beneath the paper, when ‘she had removed it, she found a little white ball, not much larger than a common shot, It only served to increase her‘curiosity. Opal took it out, and found it to be paper, carefully compressed into a sphere which, when she manipulated it a little, opened readily. Again she glanced at the figure on the cot. She was going rather far with her find; she was prying into something which might be a secret never intended for her bosom. But she had gone too far torecede. Shecould not beat back the curiosity that had taken full possession of her, but would know what was in the paper ballif her life had to answer for her temerity, and while she smoothed it out under the lamp she saw that it was covered with writ- ing. m If I read it here I can put it back into bis hand,” nae the Seraph of Satan City. ‘If I carry it off he might miss it, and then—” She stopped when she thought of what the consequences would’ be. — - : Nothing was heard in the shanty but the rr LL “< Captain Velvet’s Big Stake. breathings of Boss Nevada, while Opal, holding: her own breath, began to read the message of the button, She saw at once that the writing was in no familiar hand, that it was cramped, and, at some places, almost undecipherable because it. was so, but she did not despair of her task, ‘¢ A secret,” decided Opal; ‘‘ a secret never in- tended for me, I can't hold myself from it. Good or evil, I go on.” Then with eager eyes she read in silence. Her color changed more than once; the paper shook in her hands, but each time she clutched it anew and read on to the end. ‘‘TIn the name of heaven! how did the Mexi- can button fall into Boss Nevada’s hands?” she exclaimed. ‘*I never heard that he had a treasure of this kind. Certainly he never wore it on his clothes. Did the person who encount- ered him in ‘tthe office”—the somebody who met him there—lose it in the struggle? Ifsol want to find that person, I must find him for—” Her eyes became fixed on the paper again, and once more she read the secret which ran as follows: “The vengeance of the gods is a clever fiction. ‘‘T have waited for it till patience is no longer one of the virtues. ‘‘T have looked for the child of my heart, snatch- ed from me when she was beginning to love me, un- til my eyes are weary. ‘She comes not like vengeance to the bar of jus- tice with the head of the evil-doer, fe ‘My life goes out like the vanishing of a candle’s ame. ““Thear the voic? of my baby girl, but it is far away, calling me across the river of death. ‘‘{ have sent man after man to the trail, but they never come, or say thatit is lost forever, “Those who know. or who ought to know, I will neverask. No! I will turn my face from them and shutting my lips, will die first without a murmur, ‘‘T have the pointless dagger blade. Who has the point and the hilt? ‘“My child somewhere has a name, but not the onel gave her. She was Ruby to me, though se wanted to eall her Opal, or Bery!. “T have written this for the button of my last sleuth-hound. I have sent him on the trail which seems to lose itself in the darkness like a path that goes down into a mine. ‘*T am Mona the woman who has sat for years on the moss grown steps of the court of justice. ‘‘] have waited for steps I have never heard—the steps of retribution diagging t.e king villain of the world at her heels. ‘‘My God! hear me for the Jast time. Let my Mexican sleuth find my own!—let him stand before me and say: ‘ Behold the day of justice!” ‘* Done in my prison, this day, June 10th, 187—. ‘**Mona.”’ Is it a wonder that Opal read these startling sentences the third time before she stopped? : ‘‘ What is this?” she cried, at last. “* Who is this woman whose life bas been a hunt for the lost, a campaign for vengeance. Why has she not taken the trail herself? Ab! I see: ‘ Done in prison!’ Where is her prison? Is she there The girl was excited. She forgot the man lying on the cot. ‘‘ If the Mexican button did not fall into Boss Nevada’s hands to-night, when?” she went on. ‘‘ Somebody wanted to call the lost child Opal. That is my name. Is this a wild coincidence, or is it a terrible revelation of the past?” It was some time before Opal was calm enough to proceed, Xt last she carefully and deftly rolled the strange message into the same sphere it had been. She put it back into the bowl of the but- ton and covered it with the tissue paper, then she screwed on the metallic top, but with trem- bling hands and turned to Boss Nevada. The hand which had fallen to the floor had found the breast again, and bending over it, Opal dextrously dropped the button between the half-open fingers. The touch did not rouse the Boss of No Man’s Ground, and, as the girl drew back, a singular smile—a dreamer’s—came to his face. ‘‘T want this secret worked out,” said she. ‘““T want to know who Mona is!” She went to the door of the hut, and saw a tumult on the Plaza where half a dozen lights flashed, : Had Lolas and his companions come back from the mine and reported that Captain Nevada was lost? She could think of nothing else. ‘““‘T hear strange voices!” she exclaimed, still watching the tumult on the Square. ‘ They must belong to the Goths.” The peas ha moment a figure approached swiftly and halted before her. Opal drawing back placed herself between the man and the door. ‘¢ What do you want?” she asked. ‘¢ Ts the captain in?” ‘¢ What if he is?” ‘Then we want himdown yonder. The Gold Goths want blood. They are about to advance and take the prisoner out.” ‘* Dun Duff?” “Dun Duff!” CHAPTER XVI. MONA’S SLEUTH-HOUND. “Tey have no right to that man!” cried Eomicbooks Sap” gh §