Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 512 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

Captain Velvet’s Big Stake. 27 ‘“‘ He has been tothe mine, He has passed through ‘the office’ to the crypt. He knows where the bonanza is, and what he knows he will hold at the risk of his life,” ‘* What is his spell over the Colonel?” ‘‘ It is some mysterious power in which fear on one side and courage on the other play their All at once the door swung in and a figure came out, Dun Duff seemed to watch it with a good deal of curiosity as it came toward him, cross- ing the Square and passing under the boughs of the big tree, It stopped at the trunk and seemed to lean Once more the blows filled the cavern, with the lamp on the floor and the Sacramento de- tective stripped to the waist working for life, Suddenly a piece of rock broke from the wall and bounding away struck the lamp and ex- tinguished it. aptain Velvet threw the banner down, and part. Dun Duff is Dun Duff the cool desperado, | forward for a moment. bent forward. He found in the darkness an the man of nerve, the dead shot to the end. I By and by it moved on again and the fighter | opening that sent a thrill through his frame. don't overestimate the man, gentlemen. You | of odds walked over to the tree. He thrust his hand on till it touches nothing! have called on me to recollect that what I as- sume is opposed to a cut-tbrout of this kind. I would not forget this if I could, To estimate Dun Duff otherwise is to lose the hand we must hold against him. You stand by me, gentle- men ?” ‘*To Norgan to the death!” was the answer, which, though it came from twenty tongues, seemed to be the decision of but one man. ** Colonel Bluff wants to go to Sacramento,” continued Norgan. ‘‘He was attacked where he is by the Queen of Darkness; who dethroned Boss Nevada's reason by her assault in the mine. She left him for dead, and now she is on the trail South for the purpose of tigerishly mur- dering Mona, the discarded wife, who, half- blind, sitsin a @ark room, Poe the time for vengeance, It is too long a story to tell here at this time. I will not ancover certain secrets which cannot remain secrets much longer. No Man’s Ground must be purged of the enemy who has cursed it with his presence. Colonel Bluff is no saint, gentlemen. A thousand years of penance could not obliterate his past, but we must stand by him as between him and the gen- eral foe.” If the man bending at that very moment over the Croesus of No Man’s Ground could have heard these words clearly enunciated by his younger rival, he might have left his patient’s side, and a figure on vengeance bent might have crossed the Plaza to the door of the drink- ing den, Rorgan held up his hand to enforce silence when he had finished. ‘The Colonel cannot go to Sacramento in his condition,” he wenton, ‘* The caseis urgent. Some one must go. The Mexican tigress is in the saddle. Even now sbe has put miles be- tween her and our camp. Hatred drives the spur into the rcwels of the horse she has taken, and, believing that she has left behind the corpse of the man who deceived her by a false mar- riage, she goes to kill the woman who is his wife. Mona, of Sacramento, who is the wife and mother, and the woman who sent Captain Goldbar out, does not know that this hell-armed Nemesis is approaching.” ‘“ Where is Gideon Goldbar? He did not come back with Dun Duff after leading him away. Did the foes fight somewhere in the dark?” ‘* We cannot pretend to answer that question now,” replied Norgan, turning to the man who had spoken, ‘‘Gideon’s friend, Johnny se up, is now trying tosolve the mystery. ) must deal with others. I was saying that the murderess riding toward Sacramento must be baffled if itcan be done. There is a person on her trail. That one could not be held back when it was known, as it was only lately dis- covered that Inez, the Queen of Darkness, was in the saddle.” ‘* Who is the trailer, Captain Norgan?”’ ‘*Tt is Opal!” A shout of surprise greeted this revelation. ‘Woman against woman!” some one said, ‘‘[t is just asitshould bein this case,” re- joined the assayer. ‘“ Opal’s hand is the very one to save Mona from tke toils of the Nemesis now on the trail. I need not tell you why.” ‘“You need not, captain. We believe that Opal is riding to her mother’s rescue,” organ met the answer with a smile, ‘The girl may fail, but she will do what she can,” he resumed, ‘She rides the horse that brought Colonel Bluff up, and she knows the trail as well as does the tigress who rides ahead of her. We allsend our hopes to Sacramento with Opal, of No Man’s Ground. No man could fellow Inez with the spirit that animates her.” At that momenta man opened a cabin door and looked out, ; sMecig no one, he walked into the starlight and passed through it toasmall cabin at the door of which he knocked. There was no response. A moment afterward he opened the door and looked into a darkened room, ‘* He says he told her to get away from here?” He found a piece of paper attached to the match he read Norgan’s assumption of the mastership of No Man’s Ground, CHAPTER XXXYV. THE RAT IN THE TRAP. SHUT up in a strange death-trap as he was, Captain Velvet was not slow to realize the full horror of his situation. He had groped his way to the door of the crypt only to find it immovable, and to discover that he was shut in as Lolas and his companions had been by the hand of Boss Nevada. After awhile he went back, stumbling through the darkness, and fell at length upon the three dead inen on the floor, bark, and when with an eager smile he struck a | He thought of Johnny Jumpup, but as the | pard did not know where he was he would be likely to take a wrong trail if he were not driven from Satan City, or finished by the authority that now dominated there. The detective had not forgotten the writing left on the wall by Lolas, He remembered that the three men had been suffocated by noxious vapors that arose from somewhere, and tried to gonyeonise how long he could last in the same place, But not for a moment did the detective think of despairing. It was not his intention to give up the struggle at the outset. He had an oath that would have nerved him to breast still greater odds, Striking a match, he found the lamp which had been lost in the struggle with Dun Duff, and with this for his guide, he began the fight for liberty. The ghastly dead men were left behind, and Captain Velvet was soon exploring the treasure crypt of No Man’s Ground. All at once he drew back from a suffocating odor that seemed to come up through the ground at his feet. As he stood there his flame flickered and went out as ifsome hand had stolen up from below and snuffed it. It was some time before he could proceed, and then be went forward with a head that seemed to swim with a singular dizziness, He foand himself in a little time before a wall at oe foot of which lay several iron sledges and dicks. “Can it be that Lolas and his friends tried to break through here?” exclaimed the detec- tive. The wall bore signs of recent attack, and Mona’s sleuth found traces of man on the floor among the dust and bits of rock which the work- men had loosened. Instinctively be paid up one of the sledges and struck the wall a heavy blow. Tbe sound startled him. **The wall is not thick!” exclaimed he; ‘‘ there is a chamber beyond this one. The imprisoned pards left their job too soon.” Convinced of this, the detective set his lamp down and attacked the wall in earnest, He wondered if his blows were heard as he made them, but this thought did not deter him in the least. There was no escape by the closed door of the erypt. The forcing of the wall seemed the only chance before him, and that it might prove of no avail the intrepid detective well knew. For more than an hour, with few intermis- sions for breath and rest, the man of nerve stood ankle-deep in broken pieces of wall, and hammered away with the strength and deter- mination of a giant. The lamp on the floor threw up a sickly light which cast the grotesque shadow of the sleuth on the wall, and all the while the blows of his sledge rung throughout the death crypt. At last he threw down the hammer with a mad cry, The work appeared futile. id picked up the lamp and held it close to his work, He had made a good deal of progress, for the repeated strokes had cracked the wall in various ——————eeeEeEeEEOE——————E—E re | ee ee lt was inipossible to keep back a cry! A lot of new air rushed into theecrvpt. It touched the detective’s cheeks and gave him more hope than he had had before. Going back, he found his lamp of tin, touched the wick with a match, and then pushed the: light and his head into the opening. A larger piece of the rock than he had thought, had broken off, and he had no diffil- culty in putting his head and even his shoulders into the new cavern, For several minutes Captain Velvet stood thus vainly trying to explore with the meager means at his disposal the space beyond. At length he picked up a piece of the battered wall and threw it into the darkness. Its fall told him that he was not over ten feet from a floor, and he guessed that he had broken into another chamber of the secret mine of No Man’s: Ground. ‘*T am going to the end of this, I have prom- ised Mona to go to the end!” cried he, ‘* The- cool-head who holds the cards now thinks me out of the way, but he may discover that Gideon Goldbar has not thrown up his band.” Suiting action to his words the detective forced his body through the opening and hung for a second along the wall in the dark, He had attached the lamp to his person so. as to be able to use it in the venture at hand. When he dropped be seemed to be falling into an immeasurable abyss, and when he struck he staggered back and fell against a wall that bris- tled with roughness. **So far good enough!” ejaculated Captain Velvet. ‘ Out of the crypt into—I don’t know what. I will now see what regions I have found.” He lit his lamp again and as the blaze illu- mined the place he uttered an exclamation of surprise. Before him were a few objects which told that the small chamber had at one time had a tenant. On one of the walls, smoother than the one against which he bad fallen, he found written these words: “It isa long waiting for the hour, but it will strike one of these days. Fate will bring him to me, for when Captain Nevada is dead, the message will be taken South, and then he will come.” Witb such sentences before bim, could Cap- tain Velvet doubt whose band had been there? The Queen of Darkness had written the words on the wall—Inez, the woman who had attempt-.- ed Colonel Bluff’s life, and who at that very hour was spurring over the mountaiu-trail to he Pam a tigress upon the half-blind crea- ture, Mona the discarded, who was waiting for justice in the dark, The detective reed the words again, then he explored the cavern enough to convince himself that the Queen of Darkness was not a myth. To find an outlet from the place was the de- tective’s next move, and in this he was suc- cessful, He was in the great gold-yieiding mine of No Man’s Ground. He had found the secret bonanza which Col- onel Bluff’s pards and slaves had guarded so well before, and whose riches had made the. crypt an underground treasure-bouse. On every side his light showed him evidences of wealth, The rocks which he picked up now end then were tested by weight, and proved their value, The California sleuth went from corridor to corridor, ‘*A)] this will belong to Mona if I win,” thought he, and then he shut bis teeth and said through. them: “‘I came up here to win—to piece the dagger and find the lost,” When he felt the fresh air of night in his~ face, be fell hack, put out his lamp, and then went forward again, Once more he stood under the stars of No Man’s Ground. He bad passed the door of the crypt, and had stopped a moment there to see that it was. as solid as the rock in which it was set. A smile for Dun Duff's cunning ceme to bis lips when he passed on. ee NY RD Ce , = eS ae a the man said, in audible tones, though he spoke | places and the broken pieces lay every where. Captain Velvet found the camp as quiet as if 5 to himself alone. ‘‘Is she gone? I did not see) As he rested, a puff of air from the darkness ; every eye in it was closed in slumber. + Norgan the lover in the crowd when it faced me behind caused him to start. | But Satan City was not asleep. 1 before Lola~’s shanty. Can it be that they are ‘The bellows of the fiend somewhere beneath If he had come a little sooner be would have runaways, and that when I am about to throw | is at work again!” he cried. ‘‘The vapors are | seen Norgan fasten bis assumption of authority f down all tbe trumps, and, in spite of the odds | rising, too. They must bave met Lolas and | to the lynching-tree on the Plaza, and under the } against me, rake in the big stakes? By the | his pards at work here, just as they are meeting | very limb to which the judges of the code had “7 ' wings of the dragon! I will know where she is.” | me now,” choked Mark Moline to death. a . The speaker showed the face of Dun Duff Then he seized the sledge again and sprung at | If he had been a little earlier be might have eo when he turned away. the wall, seen Opal, well monnted, set out for Sacramento, i | _ Was there ever a co*ler_man? “It is better to die like a man if one must | with Inez the avenger ri:ing ahead to a crime: . He looked toward the Plaza und across it to | die!” broke over his lips. ‘‘I am convinced that | that burned like a flan. of Turtarus in her- a the light that showed the location of Shasta | the next ten minutes will settle this matter. | bosom. es Sam’s saloon. The wall has yielded; the sound tells me that I| Bnt the wall of the crypt had kept him at bay ry ‘What devilment goes on there, [ wonder? | am nearly through. But what lies beyond?/| too long. It had resisted too well his sledges. | r Have the pards recovered from their defeat?” Another tomb, perhaps,” and his determination, : * . . ae si GOMmIGDOOKS : (E (o)