OCR Text |
Show """ " " ''' j -By AUTHWR ST'RIJtGE'R Author of "The Wire Tappers," "The Gun Runners," "The Hand of Peril," Etc. (The Marvelous Story, Hitherto Unpublished, From Which the Pathe Photoplay of the Same Name Was Made) (Copyright, 101", by Arthur Stringer. TENTH EPISODE. THE LIVING DEAD. ff7TcVi2 'M OPPOSED to your plan, Jjvjj .sir," Enoch Golden declared with heat, "and I always will l'Jujijlin opposed to It!" David Manley, as he stared across the. table at ho ruffled old millionaire, tried to control himself to patience. "But you acknowledge that you are equally opposed to Legar's Intrusions Into this house, to having his secret , agents planted about at your elbows. Hut when I work out a plan that offers a reasonable promise of trapping trap-ping Legar and his men, you stop the who Lb business by declaring it's lacking lack-ing In dignity!" "Dignity is something which departed de-parted from this house the day Legar llrst forced his way into it!" was Gulden's bitter retort. "Precisely!" cried young Manley. "Ills whole campaign has been one of intimidation, of threats and assaults and reprisals. They have been trying try-ing to fight us with terror. So my contention is, why not give them a duno of their medicine? Why not fight them with their own weapons, and in duing so, perhaps go them one better?" "But I can only repeat my convictions convic-tions that your plan can't succeed!" protested the tremulous-voiced old financier. "Why not leave that to me?" cut in young Manley, with his first touch of impatience. "And you think you're going to Brighton 'cm away with a casket!" "I'm going to make them believe that David Manloy, having departed tills life because of an attack on his person by one Mauki, with poisoned arrows, is about to be duly interred m tho Golden mausoleum, and " "But you couldn't even get a wax figure that would fool a 6-year-old child! You couldn't " "I've already got the figure," interrupted inter-rupted Manley. "And it strikes me as being an exceptionally perfect one." "Hut what's all this funeral business to lead to?" demanded the old financier. finan-cier. . 4- 'It leads to the fact that Legar and his men will be duly informed of my death, for I want all the servants in this house to pass before the casket and see me in it. And Legar's spy will be one of them. So Legar, you may be sure, will get the facts as soon as they are known. He will be tipped off as to the day and hour of the funeral. fu-neral. He will also be told that the cortege, say of three carriages, is to proceed to the Golden mausoleum, and that Margory Golden is to go in one of the carriages. And that lonely spot will strike him at precisely the right spot for making a coup." "And what do we gain by that?" "We'll fill our big ?30,000 mausoleum with thirty big policemen and round up the gang before Legar can even smell a rat." But Enoch Golden remained unconvinced. uncon-vinced. "So If that's your idea of fun, my boy, go as far as you like. Conduct it In your own way. But don't count on me, sir!" David Manley. however, did not conduct that strange funeral altogether alto-gether Jn his own way. Carefully as every detail had been planned, there was one or two minor features which at the time escaped his attention. The most Inconspicuous and yet the most vital of these was, perhaps, the personality of the driver of the third carriago In that small cortege which wented its way so decorously from the Golden home. For under the funereal outfit of this placid-eyed driver reposed the stalwart body of a certain One-Lamp Louis, long known among his associates as an habitue of the Owl's Nest and an underground un-derground agent for Jules Legar himself him-self . Now One-Lamp Louis gave no promise of either active or passive Interference with these duly appointed appoint-ed mortuary exercises until the city Use If had been left well behind. Then, awakening to the fact that theyivere traversing a desirably sequestered stretch of .oad, he watched intently for certain prearranged signals from his one-armed accomplice. Immediately Imme-diately after the discovery of those looked-for signs the spirited team driven by One-Lamp Louis showed unexpected yet unmistakable evidences evi-dences of restiveness. The girl in that carriage of mourning, of course, had small chance to discover that these movements were beuig circuitously created an 1 sustained by One-Lamp Louis himself through artful manipulation manipu-lation of both bit and whip. But there was a limit to what that team of spirited blacks would endure. And they suddenly, to all Intents and purposes, determined to follow their own line of travel at iheir own rate of speed, for, as the driver sat on the box apparently sawing on the reins, that exasperated team plunerd suddenly sud-denly forward, swerved across the road, and went galloping down a tree-screened tree-screened bypath which was little more than a cart trail winding in and out through slopes of greensward and shrubbery. Half a mile deeper in that shrubbery shrub-bery this runaway team would surely have reached the spot where a black limousine stood hidden away In tho shadow of laurel-copse had not still another and an equally unheralded factor entered into the situation. This factor took the form of a high-power high-power roadster in which was seated a man wearing a yellow mask. His irruption ir-ruption into that orderly little "procession, "pro-cession, Indeed, proved as abrupt as One-Lamp Louie's eruption from it. And he seemed plainly suspicious of both Louie's motives and movements, for he lost no time in swinging from the highway and plunging recklessly after the runaway carriage. As his car approached the runaway cab that mysterious stranger, known as the Laughing Mask, stepped to the running-board of his roadster, leaning lean-ing far out as the two swerving vehicles vehi-cles drew together. One-Lamp Louie, whatever he may have thought of that approach, had little means of evading it. To swing off what narrow nar-row road remained before him seemed frankly suicidal. To lash his team to greater effort was already out of the question. To take his hands from the reins, even, along that uncertain un-certain road, was equally foolhardy. So the strange race went on, the swaying and bounding cab with a' white-faced girl tossed about under its hood, the leaping and lurching roadster, every second drawing closer down on its quarry, yet every second threatening to turn turtle over one of the grassy embankments above which it shuddered and slewed. It was the Laughing Mask, leaning far out from his running-board, who threw open the cab door and called sharply to the startled girl. "Quick," he commanded. For one moment she hesitated. Then she reached out for the unsteady un-steady hand groping for her. She caught at the muscular young arm supporting her as she 'half climbed and half tumbled out to the cab step. Then, relinquishing her grasp on the hand rail, she surrendered to the clutch of this arm as it encircled her and swung her bodily from her feet. The next moment she found herself her-self sitting back, a little breathless, in the leather upholstered seat of the roadster and the man in the laughing laugh-ing mask smiling down at her with his enigmatic smile. "It was risky, I know, he explained. ex-plained. "But not half as as bad as meeting Jules Legar on the other side of that laurel grove! The Black Watch. A number of things had happened and were happening to disconcert, if not to discourage, the redoubtable Legar. Le-gar. That astute young adventuress, Betsy Le Marsh, alias Williamsburg Elsie, who, with the aid of divers forged recommendations, had installed in-stalled herself in the Golden house- hold, repeatedly and stubbornly reported re-ported that David Manley was dead. Williamsburg Elsie also expressed a strong desire to migrate from the house in which she found herself so inquisitive a maid, since that house, she declared, was too full of "queer things" for her comfort. They were, she frankly acknowledged, "getting her goat." When, at Legar's suggestion, she had tried to "pump a needleful o' dope" Into her altogether unsuspecting unsuspect-ing mistress, a dead man's face had suddenly appeared between her and the bedroom door. And on two different dif-ferent occasions, after midnight, when she had ventured down to the housekeeper's house-keeper's telephone to send in a secret message to Legar himself, she had found herself confronted by a ghost in white. When the master criminal to put to an end to all such absurdities, had by the force of many dire threats and oaths compelled both One-Lamp Louie and Red Egan himself to repair re-pair to the Golden mausoleum and verify the contents of the mysterious myste-rious casket there deposited, Red Egan had returned with the preposterous prepos-terous story of a white sheet suddenly sud-denly descending out of the blackness of the vault and whisking One-Lamy Louie out of reach and also out of sight. And since the once valiant Ked Egan showed so craven a spirit that nothing short of a quart of three-star three-star brandy could tranquilize his of the vault and whisking One-Lamp Louie showed no signs of returning from the mysterious realms into which the afore-mentioned white sheet had whisked him, Legar promptly and wrathfully decided to take the matter Into his own hands. He would lay this ghost, he announced, an-nounced, or something would go emash in the process. But he had no intention of approaching ap-proaching that intimidating mausoleum mauso-leum without due and definite preparation. prepa-ration. With him he took a powerful power-ful pocket flashlight, a Colt automatic auto-matic pistol and a couple of extra clips of cartridges. But the instrument instru-ment on which he reposed the mox confidence "was a gun-metal disk little bigger than a pocket aneroid, some three inches' in diameter and no thicker than a man's hand. This innocent-looking disk, which, could SYNOPSIS ypWOCH GOLDEN lives with hit wife and daughter in a modern Eden J2j until their home on "Windward Island" is invaded by Dr. Ludwig Pali (tori. Palidori, by threats, compromises the wife in his effort to steal the secret of the island. Golden discovers them, drives the wife from him, and not only crushes Palidori's hand that caressed her but brands his face. Palidori in revenge opens the flood gates of the island and escapes with Mar gory, the child. Golden and his wife narrowly escape. Twelve years later Margory has grown into beautiful young womanhood. Golden is a hardened millionaire. Palidori, or as he note calls himself, Legar, turns the girl over to Casavanti, the "tenderloin1' princeling', but sht is rescued by a mysterious stranger who wears a laughing mask. He tells her he is the "Hammer of God." ' The girl is taken to Golden's home by this stranger and thrust into Golden's study. But fust as he discovers who she is she is spirited axcay again. Manley, his frivolous young secretary, traces her to the "Owl's Rest," where Legar and his evil companions live. Bhe is rescued from there by the mysterious stranger by the remarkable expedient of encasing her in a brandy cask and driving off with her. Legar then threatens Golden with robbery, and after setting off an explosion ex-plosion under the Third National Bank calmly walks away with $50,000, under the guise of a forged letter. Be escapes with the money. Manley is kidnaped from Golden's home to the Oicl's Nest by Legar. He escapes. In the meantime Margory has been locked in the bi-g vault at Golden's home by Legar, who escapes with the missing half of the chart indicating in-dicating the treasure on Windward Island. The Laughing Mask, hiding in Legar's limousine, snatches this from his hands, however, and escapes. Man-ley Man-ley returns to the house and, with the aid of Margory's trained parrot, who repeats the safe combination, releases Margory alive, but unconscious. Golden receives the "Spotted Warning" from Legar, demanding that he give him the missing portion of the treasure chart of Windward Island. Be laughs at the warning and sends Margory to his sistefs country home for safety. En route the machine collides with Legar's auto and Margory is rescued by the Mysterious Mask, who takes her to her mother. . Golden, fearing Margory is in Legar's hands, and receiving a final warning from Legar, keeps the demanded appointment on the twenty-fourth floor of the Central Tower Building. Aeroplane flights, disastrous auto chases across country, more dynamite and other instruments of both Legar and Golden, make pleasure uncertain for the Golden family. Shortly after Count Lugi da Espares, a foreigner, arrives at the home ax a guest he applies to Golden, for Margory's hand, the old millionaire refusing to discuss the question until Margory has been approached. But Margory refuses to treat his proposition seriously. By using Margory as bait, Legar, tcith his band, is enticed to a bridge on a lonely road. In the struggle, Legar is wounded by the count's revolver and plunges into the river belotc. Satisfied that he is dead, the party returns to prepare for the great masquerade ball, to be given that evening by the count. Legar himself slips in The Laughing Mask appears and wans everyone to leave the house immediately, as a catastrophe, engineered by Legar, is to occur at the stroke of twelve. In the commotion Legar escapes, plunging through the window, pursued by Manley. Just then the giant steel vault, about which Golden has bragged, is dynamited and plunges through to the basement. Out of the pandemonium which ensues comes Margory, unhurt, Manley, injured, and the announcement that Count da Espares is dying under the tvrcckage in the basement. Margory startles her father by aiding the Laughing Mask to escape from a band of detectives. Later Manley is found bound and gagged in his room. Although he can ex-plain nothing of the circumstances; Margory consoles him and passes remarks which lead him to hope she may care deeply for him. Later when Margory is decoyed into Legar's hands by a false note, Manley shoots at Legar, but with the girl is overpowered and left to die in a gas-fliled room. Manley overcomes the fumes, but finds a new foe in the form of a monkey-visaged figure at the fire escape window who shoots tiny arrows, the size of a darning needle, from a slender tube. Manley shields the unconscious Margory from the rain of uncanny missiles. The two are rescued res-cued by artists living below, who investigated the strange noises. At the hospital some time later Manley is given up as doomed when Margory hysterically hys-terically convinces the physician that the wounds were from the poisoned arrows shot by Mouki, sent from Legar. Wholly cheerful and appearing to be anything but dying, Manley reads a strange note thrown on his bed from the Laughing Mask tchtch assures the youth the poison had been taken from the arrows before their use. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY be slipped into a vest pocket as easily as a timepiece, was known to the habitues of . the Owl's Nest as the Black Watch. While actually nothing more than a small-sized hand grenade, its claim to distinction lay in the tremendous explosive power which stood compassed com-passed between its slender metal walls. Legar was not a coward. Yet as he stood in the clammy midnight air of the golden mausoleum and quietly removed the screws that held the top on the black casket beside him he found that combination of silence and gloom and unsavory surroundings a little more of a strain on his nerves than he had anticipated. Yet as he lifted back the sable cover of the casket he did so with a hand that was still steady. Thence he took up his flashlight, and pressing close to the coffin's side, stood studying the pallid pal-lid face that lay surrounded by its even more pallid drapery of white satin. He stared at that pallid face long and intently. He stared at it with studious and narrowing eyes. Then he did a strange and an inexplicable thing. 4- Lifting his maimed right arm that ended in its shank of steel, he brought it down with a crash on the glass cover of the casket. Then, as though infuriated by some unreasoning hatred ha-tred for the pallid face still staring so Impassively up at him, he struck again. This time the blow fell directly on the head between the white satin swathlngs. But that flailing arm, instead of striking a human head of flesh and boue, crashed down through a thin shell of fiber and tinted wax. Legar, focusing his light on that shattered mask, emitted a short bark of triumph as the meaning of it all came home to him. He leaned for several minutes over the violated casket, cas-ket, staring at It with insolent yet abstracted ab-stracted eyes, pondering just what move could lie beyond so intricately engineered a subterfuge. And the answer an-swer to that question came more promptly and more directly than he had anticipated. For as he stood there, turning a piece of the wax- covered tissue meditatively over In his fingers, the electric bulbs that strung the mausoleum roof broke into sudden light. From different quarters quar-ters of that shadowy building, at the same time, stepped a group of hidden hid-den officers, headed by David Mauley himself. So quickly and so quietly did that transformation take place, indeed, that the man leaning over the casket had neither time nor chance to change his position. He merely blinked a little stupidly at the revolver re-volver which glimmered in Manley's hand. Then, with a gesture that seemed equally stupid, he reached for his watch and held the heavy gun-metal gun-metal case meditatively between his fingers. "Stick 'em up!" Manley was at the same time commanding with a curt head movement toward Legar's hands. "It may have taken some work, but this is the time we gather you In!" Legar laughed as he confronted his enemies. "Do you want to take me alive?" he calmly inquired. "Alive or dead, I'm going to take you!" "You're sure of that?" 'Yes, I'm almost sure of it "Then take this first," cried Legar. At the same moment that he spoke the left hand, in which he still held what seemed to be a black metal watch case, swung forward. And as that object which so closely resembled resem-bled a black watch hurtled through the air Legar flung himself flat on his face along the vault flooring.' Then the black watch struck. The next moment the walls of that ponderous structure of marble and sandstone, seemingly built to defy time itself, lifted bodily in the air, like the hull of a torpedoed dreadnought. dread-nought. Then, following the roar and rumble of that vast detonation, came the momentary catastrophic silence which so strangely and yet so inevitably in-evitably succeeds a calamity too gigantic gi-gantic and too abrupt to be understood. under-stood. 4-4-4 That ominous silence, however, lasted only a few seconds. Out of it arose muffled calte and thin cries for help, followed by answering shouts rJ) rA i; ; ; : ' J Legar snarled at the tales of dead men's faces, ordering Red Egan, at the point of the iron claw, to break into the tomb and verify its contents. from many different points In the darkness as rescuing hands set to work on the ruins. And out of those ruins, while this work was going on, emerged two bruised and tattered figures strangely divergent in appearances. The first figure, worming its way out through the interstices of crumbled rock and cement, as cautiously and as silently as a wounded blacksnake might crawl from a cave, bore an iron claw at the end of its right arm and betrayed an unmistakable desire to creep away into the darkness before being observed. ob-served. The second man, who, on recovering recover-ing consciousness, found himself encaged en-caged between two fallen pillars of marble topped by one of the roof slabs, experienced no little difficulty in emerging to the open, so closely were these protecting pillars wedged about him. But as he worked his bruised body through that Giant's Causeway of broken rock he felt grateful enough, remembering what had happened, to be still alive. And sore as he was in the body, he was even more bruised in spirit at the memory of the fact that his enemy, Jules Legar, had at the last moment escaped from his clutch. The Lake of Fire. Legar, lucky as his escape had been, knew that his margin of safety was still too narrow for much immediate comfort of either mind or body. So he crawled away as best he could, nursing his strength when he came to cover and going up again when some passing light showed that cover to be none too dense, But he did not give up until he had reached higher ground. There he was able to hide himself in a thicket and rest for an hour or two. But to remain in that neighborhood, until morning he knew would be out of the question. About that whole suspected area, he felt,, the police would surely throw a cordon, and the resource of disguise was no longer at his disposal. Already from where he lay he could see dozens of moving lamps of workers about the mausoleum mauso-leum ruins. He could also see the glow of a powerful pair of headlights, head-lights, apparently of a motor car threading Its way to the scene of the explosion. And to the north he could even more distinctly see the fiery tongues of the chimney flares above the Westingham foundry, where hundreds of toilers, turning night into day, worked about the great blast furnaces and caldrons of molten metal. He was once more himself, by this time, walking with a limp that was scarcely discernible. But as he stole down from the higher ground and made his way back toward the Westingham West-ingham chimney flares he became once more conscious of the" whiter glare along the roadside he was so cautiously skirting. This, he remembered, remem-bered, as he stole nearer, came from the headlights of a stalled limousine. Then he made a second and a more startling discovery. He knew, even before he caught sight of Train working work-ing over his helpless car, that it belonged be-longed to Enoch Golden. But what actually drew him closer to the spot was a glimpse of Margojy Golden herself, her-self, in a gray fur motor coat, as she stepped from the body of the car and came full Into the glare of the headlights, head-lights, closer beside her stooping chauffeur. Yet it was not until the girl had passed well out of hailing distance of the headlighted . car that Legar circled even more hurriedly forward and swung in again to intercept her. She was trudging, a little breathlessly, breath-lessly, up a sandy slope, with her t straining eyes still fixed on the moving mov-ing lanterns about the ruined mausoleum. mauso-leum. Then, swinging apparently out of the empty air about her, a circle of steel, suddenly encompassing her arm, brought her to an abrupt stop. With one quick movement Legar tore the motor veil from her head, twisted it Into a coil, and flung it about her neck. And all the while the Iron Claw, grappling at her arm, held her as a steel trap might. She was already dizzy with pain when she heard the sharp crack of a revolver shot close over her shoulder. This was followed by a quick shout and a muttered oath. She felt herself forcibly flung from Legar's arms into the arms of another man panting breathlessly up the sandy slope. She could see this man, even as he held her from falling, stop to level his gun at the fleeing figure of Legar. She could see him shoot again, and still again, at the same moment that Train and the plunging automobile came throbbing and panting up to the scene, the electric lamps throwing throw-ing out their wavering, long columns of white light as they came. Then the stranger, arrested by certain gasping and gurgling sounds from the throat of the haif-garroted girl in his arms, stooped down and tore the constricting veil away from the slender, white column of her neck. And Margory, opening her eyes, saw. that it was the Laughing Mask bending bend-ing above her. "It was Legar!" she gasped as Train, followed by her father, came panting up to where they stood. "And there he goes now!" cried the Laughing Mask, pointing down the long lane of light columning out from the car's lamps. Across that narrow river of light they could catch a glimpse of a tall figure skulking off into the darkness. "Follow thr.t man with your car," the Laughing Mask suddenly cried out to the chauffeur. "No car could travel through country coun-try like that!" protested Train. "Then keep your lights on the main road to the west here, so as to pick him up if he tried to break through on that side. I'll swing around by the foundry yards and head him off in the east!" And the next moment the man in the yellow mask had disappeared in the darkness. Golden and his daughter daugh-ter stood staring after him. Two minutes later the blackness that had swallowed him up was stabbed by a series of flame flashes, followed by the repeated bark of a revolver. From the gloom still nearer the shadowy piles of the Westingham foundry came au answering series of shots. "That means he's making for the foundry, sir!" cried the excited Train as he swung his car about. "Then, for God's sake, get us there, as quick as you can," commanded Enoch Golden as the car lurched and pulsed and crawled on between the broken shrubbery, in perilous search for some open pathway. But both Legar and his pursuer were by this time well beyond their line of vision. That desperate-minded master criminal, In fact, realizing that his enemy was pressing close at his heels, mounted a slag pile, dropped flat and emptied his revolver into the darkness, where the Laughing Mask should have been. But the wary pursuer, dropping low beside an empty pitch barrel, held his fire and waited. The moment he heard the crisp sound of footsteps along the slag slope he once more took up the pursuit. That pursuit led through a narrow lane between great piles of structural iron. It led through an abandoned boiler-room, then on through a dimly lighted and low-roofed structure of pulleys and lathes, and from there to the brighter lighted and higher roofed metal-room of the foundry itself. There, beside glowing furnaces, half-naked half-naked men tolled over Incandescent annealing boxes and cauldrons of molten mol-ten metal. There gigantic track cranes swung bowls of liquid fire from crucibles to mold beds. And there the harried Legar, bewildered be-wildered by the sudden bright light, ran like a pelted hound down the sandy paths between forge and coke oven and cauldron crane. There, seeing see-ing his way blocked by a group of round-eyed Lithuanians, he swung, catlike, up into the Iron network of the cable bridges, with his pursuer etill close at his heels. And there, midway across that smoke-stained roof, that echoed with the tumult of thunderous hammers and directly over a king cauldron of molten steel, the two men came together. There Legar, with his metal claw hooked securely into the iron network above hia head, swung about and faced his enemy. And there on that grimy bridge, high above the equally grimy workmen who left their forges and lathes and caldrons to witness the struggle, the two enemies who had so long and bitterly opposed each other found themselves face to face for their final struggle. Yet the man in the yellow mask If You Jave Not Begun "The Iron Claw," Do So Now. Here is the tenth installment. in-stallment. Arthur Stringer is nearing the climax of his story. Read this and order your next week's paper today for the eleventh installment. seemed the cooler headed of the two, for as Legar struck, snarling, at hia face, he ducked low on his narrow perch and at the same moment whipped his revolver from the side , pocket of his coat. Yet Legar, with 1 a movement equally prompt, kicked - viciously at the fingers clustered about the gun butt before the weapon itself could be brought into use. The next moment the weapon fell with a hiss and splash ;nto the lake of molten metal beneath them. Then the struggle became one of tendon against tendon, of straining muscle against muscle, of empty-handed empty-handed mortal strength pitted against mortal strength. There, like animals of the wild, high in some Amazonian eyrie, the two strangely entangled figures fought and struggled and clawed and struck. It was as he maneuvered to bring about a change of position that the ever-watchful Legar, alert for the most trivial advantage, saw his chance. Swinging his body suddenly free from its footing on the narrow ledge of metal where he stood, he pendulumed toward his momentarily unstable opponent, throwing his feet . forward and upward, as he did so, with all the force of a football player kicking a double punt. 4- 4- The force of this unlooked-for impact im-pact was too much for the man In the mask. He tottered back, caught frantically at a soot-covered steel bar beside him, dropped the full length of its diagonal course before he could make sure of his clutch, and came into violent collision with the heavy iron block of a crane ladle. There, half-stunned by the blow, he fell sprawling across a polished steel cable which drooped floorward between be-tween the block and its empty metal pot. He tried to clutch that cable as he fell, but his speed proved too great and his overtaxed fingers were too weak. As he fell along Its polished surface, however, it offered sufficient resistance to carry hia limp body beyond the peril of that open lake of molten metal, which, his frantic brain kept telling him, meant death. And as he dropped weakly from the cable loop to a pile of molding sand M lying between a casting box and an empty spill trough, a score of watch- Ing men gave utterance to a shout of relief, and a score of waiting hands were there to help him to his feet. So intent were those astounded Ironworkers Iron-workers on watching that perilous fall, however, that they paid scant attention atten-tion to the second figure climbing spiderlike spi-derlike higher along the blackened ironwork of the blackened roof. They caught no glimpse of him as he scrambled, scram-bled, sooty and panting, through the ventilating flue that opened on the roof itself. Nor did any eyes follow him as he crept, gorillalike, along th perilous slope of that roof until he came to the end of the building. Along this end he found a lightning rod, running run-ning from the peak of its roof to the ground. He promptly tested the strength of this wire, satisfying himself him-self carefully, foot by foot, by means of one hand and an iron hook which struck and clung to the metal with the vicious tenacity of an eagle's claw. When he reached the ground, still breathing heavily, he looked cautiously cau-tiously about. Then, making sure he was unobserved, he slipped Into the shadow of a pile of iron ingots, once more waited and listened, and then, crouching low, crossed the foundry yard and climbed the high board fence surrounding it. And a moment Wter the darkness of the night had swallowed him up. (To be continued next week.) Read the Story See the Photoplay at Your Favorite Theater ' - |