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Show Next we hear of a bank wrecking that made no noise; then we get on the trail of these three men from Louisville Louis-ville and run into two more of the no-noise no-noise wreckings. Farther along, we discover that Canby is following us, or the Louisville bunch or both. Next we " "You needn't catalogue the twists and turns. If you know anything more than you've told me, you ought to turn It loose, Wally." "I don't know anything more's the pity; and that's the stubborn truth. But I'm going to know, before we quit and call It a day." By this time the road had left the narrow valley of the Pannikin. Knowing Know-ing from the itinerary in the route book that there were hazards ahead on the descent to the Red desert edge mining town of Copnh. and hoping to be able to have daylight for the negotiating' nego-tiating' of them, Markham did not spare the car on the way up. Nevertheless, Neverthe-less, it was coming on dusk when they found themselves entering upon the hazardous descent, with the lights of Copah winking in the distance. It was while they were sliding silently silent-ly down the steep grades that they passed a large closed car stopped midway mid-way on one of the tangents, as if its occupants had halted to view the sunset sun-set glories. "Sightseers," said Markham ; and then, suddenly, "Say, Owen ; wasn't that the Nordyke Canby's car?" What Landis might have answered was lost In the limbo of things unsaid. As they rounded a "hairpin" curve and shot away down the succeeding tangent they could see the stopped car high above standing behind a row of j L The Black Em of Silence By Francis Lynde Illustrations by O. Irwin Myers (WNU Service) (Copyright by William Gerard Chapman.) BHaalBaaBHaaBBaBaHaBE SYNOPSIS Owen Landis, young inventor, has developed an extraordinary "silencer," which is stolen from a safe in his laboratory. Landis tells Wally Markham, his chum, the only person, beside himself, knowing know-ing the combination of the safe, is Betty Lawson, with whom the inventor in-ventor is In love. Markham takes a plaster cast of a woman's footprint, foot-print, found beneath the window of the laboratory, and takes an opportunity op-portunity to fit it to one of Betty's shoes. They are identical. Betty tells Markham Herbert Canby, a stranger, posing as a "promoter," had driven her home the previous night, and that she had dozed in the car. Markham does not tell Landis of his discovery. Vaguely suspicious of Canby's honesty, he searches his hotel room, in his absence, ab-sence, finding two loaded automatic revolvers and a complete set of burglar's tool. Canby brings the revolvers and burglar's kit to the hotel clerk, claiming to have just found them in his room. That night the safe in the bank at Perthdale is blown open and looted, loot-ed, the noise of the explosion being be-ing unheard. Satisfied that his "black box" Is in the hands of crooks, Landis, with Markham, goes to Perthdale. Three strangers, stran-gers, claiming to be business men of Louisville, are the only possible, suspects. Markham and Landis decide de-cide to follow them, although advices ad-vices from Louisville seems to guarantee the standing of the three. At St. Joseph Markham sees Canby's car. He learns Can-by Can-by is driving west, with Betty Lawson and her father as his guests In the car. While he and Landis are sleeping, Markham's car is stolen and wreaked. He buys another, and they go on. CHAPTER VI Continued 7 "No : but there was a perfectly good roadster wrecked back there in Kansas," Kan-sas," Markham put in pointedly. "Yes, but nothing in the wide world to connect the wrecking with these men we're chasing. Why would a trio of bank burglars, if that's what they are, pass up all the chances in six or seven hundred miles and go streaking off up here in these mountains?" moun-tains?" "Just so," said Markham with a short laugh. "It isn't decent. But there Is something else I'd like to know. What has become of Canby and the Lawsons?" This question was answered late In the afternoon, as they were running down the valley of the Panniken toward Copah still gaining upon the Fleetwing, as they learned by inquiry as they had come along. It was at a water tank station on the Pacific Southwestern that they first heard of the Nordyke limousine. It was ahead of them; had apparently been ahead all day. They had stopped at a filling station to get gas, and to ask about the Fleetwing, and the gas man grinned. "You'll have to stap on it some to catch up with them fellers in the Eight," he told them. "They pulled up here coupla hours ago and told me they'd made It from Denver since mornin'." Then, "What's the matter with that bunch? Ever'body seems to be askin' about 'em." "Who else, hesides us?" Markham wanted to know. "Three folks in a Nordyke limousine; limou-sine; right handsome young feller drivln' and doin' the talkin', with a girl pretty enough to wake the dead settln' In with him, and an oldish man in the back." "About how long ago was this?" "I disremember; about an hour, I reckon." Markham was putting the gears In low for the start when Landis halted him to ask another question of the gas man. "Did the limousine driver ask about anybody else?" The man scratched his head as if trying to- remember. Suddenly he looked up with the wide-mouthed grin again In place. "Why, yes come to think. Wanted to know If anybody else had been along askin' about the Eight; two fellers, he said, but he couldii't tell me what kind of a car they'd be drivin'." It was Landis who spoke first when the two were once more on their way. "Wally, how Is Bert Canby mixed up in this thing?" he demanded. "What Is his connection with these fellows? And why Is he keeping tab on us?" "Why ask me?" Markham shirked. "Because I've bad a feeling nil along that you know more about this mystery mys-tery than I do; more than you are willing to tell me." "If you put It on the ground of knowledge, I don't, Owen ; I'm just as much befuddled as you are. I can say that honestly." "You ore trying to shield somebody, Wally. Who Is It?" "Walt," said .Markham shortly; then, "As I say, I'm Just us much In the dark as you lire. But, take the known fads In their order. On the night when you show me what your black box can do, you lose It, and the circumstantial evidence Indicates lint man and i woman raided your shop. murderers to throw stone at. Just before the thing came off I 'was asking ask-ing you if the car wasn't a Nordyke. Was It? Or was it the Fleetwing?" "I couldn't say. All I noticed was that It was a closed car." "No matter; we'll find out In a few minutes what it was or is." . They were entering Copah. Markham Mark-ham steered into the shadows and turned off the car lights. They had not long to wait before the headlights of a following car appeared on the rearward road. "Spot It as It passes !" Markham rapped out ; and so they did, both of them. ' What they saw was a mere thickening of the mysteries. mys-teries. For the passing car, slowing to town speed as it entered the town street, was no other than Canby's limousine, lim-ousine, with Canby himself at the wheel. "If I wasn't reasonably certain that we're both fairly sane and in our right minds " Markham began. Then, "You saw them, didn't you?" "I saw Canby, yes." "But he wasn't alone." "No; there were two people in the back seat." "Exactly. Betty and her father, of course." "I suppose so ; though I couldn't make them out very well." ' "But, see here; Canby was an hour ahead of us at the last place we Inquired, In-quired, which was only a few miles back. His car couldn't have been the one we saw stopped up there on the mountain grade." "Of course not. The people who were In that car pushed a rock over on us. Besides, Canby hasn't my black box." "D n !" gritted Markham impatiently impa-tiently ; and then, "Owen, this thing Is getting too many twists and tangles In it altogether too many. I can't understand how Canby got behind us." Landis shook his head. "Let's wait a bit and see If another car doesn't turn up," he suggested. "There must" be another one, you know." They ' waited for half an hour or more and nothing turned up. "It's no use," Markham said at last. "We may as well drive on and get something to eat." They had eaten dinner In the dining room without seeing anybody they recognized, rec-ognized, and were making Inquiries at the desk for the Canby-Lawson party. "Nobody of either name this evening," eve-ning," said the clerk, "but that doesn't necessarily spell anything. If they are merely motoring through, they may have taken dinner tickets at the cashier's window ; In which case we'd have no record." "I see," said Markham. Then he took from his pocketbook the slip upon which, In the St. Joseph hotel, he had copied the names of the three Louisville Louis-ville men, and handed It to the clerk. "Any of these gentlemen here?" "Why, yes ; all three of them. They came in this afternoon. There they are now " pointing across the lobby. "Thanks," said Markham, and the two crossed to the neighborhood of the three, Markham saying, "They don't know us, so we can take a good look at them, for whatever that may amount to," and accordingly they took a couple of chairs a short distance from the three where they could sit and smoke and observe. For a time the espial went for nothing. noth-ing. One of the trio was reading a newspaper, and the others, the tall man and the sandy-haired one the one who had bought the new Fleetwing Fleet-wing In Chillicothe were smoking. There was nothing suspicious In the appearance or actions of any of them. "Well?" said Landis, "Where do we go from here?" "I'm waiting for Canby to show up," was the low-toned reply. "I'd like to find out how he is linked up with these people." "In that case won't It be better If we don't let him see us first?" "You're right ; we'll take the mezzanine. mez-zanine. We 'can look on as well from there." They had scarcely settled themselves when a surprised voice behind them said, "Well of all things! You two out here?" "Betty!" Landis exclaimed, springing spring-ing to his feet. Markham laughed and said, "Sure; and why not?" "But you never said a word to me, either of you, before we left Carthage ! How did you come by train?" "Part of the way," Markham qualified. quali-fied. "But again I ask, why not? Why shouldn't we take a few days off and " "I know ; but It's perfectly wonderful wonder-ful that we should meet here this way." Markham drew up a chair for her. "Sit down and we'll unravel It. Owen was needing a rest and a change ot scene, so I took him by the neck and ran off with him. Where Is your father? fa-ther? And bow do you come to be breaking your Journey In Copah?" "Daddy Is around, somewhere; and we're not breaking our Journey. We're leaving presently going on to see the Bed desert by moonlight." "Oh ; so you're driving?" "Yes; with Bert, In his stuffy luxury car. At the last minute after we'd all bought our train tickets Bert was going go-ing along, you know he said he'd like to drive, If we would. So we took our tickets back and came In the car." "Had a good trip this far?" "(llorlotis." "When did you reach Copah?" "Oh, quite a little while ago; about live o'clock, I think It was. Anyhow, daddy and I had time to bathe and change and get to the solarium In 1 1 mo to see the sunset over the Bed desert. It was simply gorgeous!" "But you took a drive after thpt, didn't yon?" Landis put In. ito an coN'nNuii'.D.i It Was All Over in a Moment great stones set up by the road builders build-ers to guard the down-mountain side of the highway. All at once one of the huge guard rocks heaved itself from its place to come tumbling over and down the declivity, timed as if by some calculating agency to reach the lower tangent coincidentally. with the racing roadster. Fortunately, Markham was one of those drivers whose reactions in an emergency are so Instantaneous as to seem purely automatic. He did the only thing there was to do released the brakes and jammed the foot throttle throt-tle open to Its limit. It was all over in a moment. With only a fraction of a second to spare at the point of Intersection, but that fraction frac-tion on the side of safety, the flying car shot fairly under the hurtling menace and went racing on to the next doubling curve. It was not until the car shot out upon the valley level that Landis relaxed, re-laxed, drawing a long breath and saying, say-ing, "I'm handing it to you, Wally. You've a lot better nerve than I have. I should have tried to stop if I'd been at the wheel. How do you suppose It happened?" "One guess Is as good as another. Mine is that whoever was driving that stopped ear had cramped bis front wheel against the rock for safety. Natural thing to do on such a stiff grade." Silence for a speeding mile, and then Landis fairly shouted. "Say, Wally! We'tc been asleep at the switch both of us! Think back a minute; didn't ye . notice that the rock didn't make ny noise coming down?" "What's that?" "napped Markham, braking the car to an abrupt stop. Then, "I knew tin re was something queer about the thing, but I was too busy Just then to figure out what It was. But you've put your finger on It. That tumbling rock ought to have made racket enough to wake the dead and there wasn't i sound !" "Well, you know there Is only one way to account, for that, don't you?" "You bet your life I do! That stopped car had your Infernal machine In It that's what. We're In luck at last." And he began to hack the car fpr a turn. "Hold on," Lnidis broke In. "What are you going to do?" "Co back up the bill mid have It out with that bunch, whoever they are!" "Listen to reason a minute, Wally," Landis said quietly. "If they are the men we've been trying for three days to run down, how much chance would we have In a road scrap with a carload car-load of yeggs most likely armed to the teelli? Besides, we haven't lost 'em. They can't go on to wherever they're going without passing us, and when they come along we can swing In and sit on their tall, can't we?" "1'inp! You're loo d d sensible for any use!" .Marklnm grunled. "It gets me on llie raw. I'm not nod .to being r ei" i"i i s n 1 '"'rk for a I 'KP i of |