Show 13 is in the dox a 5 e C AM by francis lynda illustrations by 0 irwin myers W N U 1 oa 1 copyright by berard ca 9 rard maal CHAPTER XI continued 14 1 I had said markham shortly early this morning we tried the smiths phone again and mrs smith said that you and miss betty drove in between eight find and nine last night that rang the fire alarm right and ive been haunting the hotel ever since trying to get track of you or mr landis have you anything at all to offer only this that owen disappeared last night at about the same time and abat thata a little later I 1 was sent to the northern part of the on a framed up story which was intended to efface me for an indefinite time what was the framed up story markham told it succinctly beginning with the telephone message which had presumably caused landis to go across the street to the little alice offices and bringing his own expert ence down to date why that would mean that you three were the victims of some extended criminal organization said the lawyer half incredulously how could that be youve said it fl markham larkham knappe snapped d it if I 1 tell you that this organization has hag made at least two determined attempts to murder landis and me you will understand how serious the situation Is good lord who are these gangsters 1 I wish I 1 could tell you but I 1 cant of the four principals I 1 can name only one and we have nothing to involve him directly iles hes a former citizen of yours whom you know very well herbert canby frowned indeed we do know him to our cost lord I 1 I 1 wish starbuck were here hes the one man in brewster who could take this thing by the neck and choke the mysteries out of and at that moment as if skillinge stillinge Sti llInge fervent wish had evoked him the ex cowboy mine owner pushed his way through the revolving doors and stood before them CHAPTER XII following Foi lowing the brief phone talk with markham at hillcrest Hlll crest landis had cut the dinner interval short in order to return to the lobby to mark the adient of new arrivals As the evening leaned he had strolled over to the desk to ask some questions of the clerk those three louisville men mr markham and I 1 were inquiring about he day we arrived have you heard anything more from them we have there was a wire this morning they will be in on the nevada flyer this evening Is that so we understood they were driving the clerk smiled its quite a attle jaunt from louisville to brewster they probably hadi had enough of the open road after a day or so anyway they are coming on the flyer that Is what their wire said it was at this conjuncture that the telephone switchboard girl had come up to say excuse me mr landis but mr starbuck has just called up from his office across the street to ask if you would come over a few minutes certainly landis had said surprised to learn that the mine owner had bad returned turned ri from colah so soon As he had stepped out upon the sidewalk dewalk el he saw that the offices of the little allee alice mining company were lighted and standing in front of the bank building elevator and stairway entrance was w as a car with its motor running but with its lights turned oft off ills first thought had been that it was Star bucks car but as ho be heard it he had seen that it was a different make since it was blocking the way he stepped aside to pass behind it when he was in the rear of the car and before he bo could step up to the curb the softly idling motor suddenly roared alive and the car leaped backward at him there was time only for a futile effort to save himself and then the street pavement rose up to smite him into oblivion when ho ha came to he found himself tied and blindfolded and jammed in between two men in the back seat of a car which was being driven somewhere at reckless speed when he stirred the man at his left pressed pointed against his ribs and a prating grating voice at his ear said youve ben asking for it for a good while and now youve got if you make a move or raise a yell get the knife I 1 landis made no reply half dazed as he wash was he realized rea lizel that h lie e was helpless for the time being at least As his brain cleared he took himself savagely to task for having fallen so BO easily into the trap set for him bin and from that he strove to find answers to the questions that came thronging upon him who were MS lit 91 kidnapers where were they taking him and what were they going to do to him these vital questions were still unanswered when the car came to a sudden stop there were sounds as of the removing of a ba barricade rrie ade after which the ahe car went forward slowly at ohp nert atod he was roughly hus hug tied out next ho he wits was led up a steep path or road on what seemed to b be a the slope of a mountain at the su summit m of the ascent the forced march was continued on a level after the first few steps he realized that he was no longer in the open the air was dank and hla his footsteps and those of his captors echoed hollowly cs as if in a cavern cm ern landis counted his steps to one ona hundred two hundred three and still more before ho he was halted there was a click of a lock and a creaking of rusty hinges then the man who had hold of him gave him a shove that made him stumble a and nd f fall all headlong the rusty hinges creaked again and he was alone satisfied after a moment or two that he was no longer in danger of being knifed he rolled over and began to work at his knotted wrists his fingers trained to the manipulation of delicate mechanisms soon got the twisted bandanna manacle anacle ro untied then he tore the bandage from hla his eyes only to find that he was wag still sightless plunged in darkness almost thick enough to be felt getting upon his feet he began to explore his surroundings by the sense of touch cautious gro groping pings proved that he was in an underground passage of some sort before he ha had gone very far his fingers told him that he was not in a natural cavern tho the wall at his left was shattered and broken and once his touch fell upon a smooth half groove in the stone marking the path of a drill this identified the passage as a drift in a mine on an abandoned mine he assumed since the silence was not broken by any sound of activity stumbling on he found the passage beginning to ascend and seventy nino counted paces up the incline brought him to a place where the drift forked taking the lefthand left hand passage he was stopped within a hundred paces by a wall of rock extending all across the passage turning back he tried the right hand drift this led him into a maze of and cross drifts in which he soon boon lost every vestige of the sense ot of direction weary and with his head still aching from the blow given him by the assaulting auto he was about to sit down on a pile of broken stone to rest when his guiding hand on the wall came la in contact with a smooth cylindrical object wedged in a crevice fingertips answering for eyes he knew at once that what he had found was a miners candle and with shak ing hands he searched his pockets for matches he found a familiar little card of safety matches and the tha reaction from despair to hope renewed made him dizzy there were only seven and with miserly care he struck one and held the flame to the candle wick with the candle held high he surveyed his surroundings two other passages came into the one in which he was standing on every side there was ample evidence that ahat the workings were very ancient and that they had been long abandoned no longer obliged to grope in darkness he plunged haphazard into one of the four passages and was again involved in a maze that seemed to have no end and offered no outlet leg weary finally he was about to stop and rest when he heard beard sounds that he could compare to nothing but the sobs bobs of a human being in distress unable to determine from which of the confusing passages the sounds were coming he found it at last by the trall trail and error method at the foot of the steep incline down which he slid digging his heels in and clutching for hand holds the flickering light of the candle revealed the figure of a 8 woman she was sitting on the floor of the passage with her back to the wall and she was crying quickly he recognized her and ran to kneel beside her betty I 1 he gasped what under heaven freyou are you doing here tell me happened how did you get into this chaotic place she pointed and following her gesture he saw a mine bucket standing at the end of the passage with a rope attached which disappeared upward in it a chimney like shaft that Is the tha way I 1 came she said 1 I was lowered in that bucket from somewhere up above im glad I 1 see what they were wera doing with me you see were you blindfolded too yes were you 1 I was indeed then youre not afraid of the dark are you no not when I 1 can reach out and touch somebody that I 1 know all right ill blow th candle out and save it its the only one there Is and with the return of the pitchy darkness now tell me all about it hardly believe me when I 1 do owen you knew that wally and I 1 had dinner with the smiths at hillcrest you yes wally got me on the phone at the hotel and told me well we left about nine or a little before and were stopped on the way by two irnen men who pulled wally out of the car and tried to kidnap or murder him I 1 dont know which mr smith came up just in time then we drove on and when we reached tho the the house bouse was all dark and 1 I remembered that mrs stillings had told me when I 1 phoned to her from the smiths that she and mr stillings might not be at home when I 1 came back and that it if they and the serva eer vanta ints had bad gone to bed rd id find a latch key under the me mat you find the key beyt 1 11 I took look for it the night was so still and pleasant that I 1 sat intone in one of the porch chairs to enjoy it car been out of bight more than five minutes when another car drove up the man who got out of it had on a white uniform and said bald he was waa one of the nurses at the railroad hospital and that daddy had just been brought in from the fossil beds beas badly injured I 1 stop to think just flew down the walk and jumped into the car the man got in with me in just a few minutes the man clapped a bandage over my eyes and told mo me to keep still of course I 1 knew then the story about daddy was just a made up lie to get me away from the house and into the car I 1 tried to get the door open so I 1 could jump out it do any good and when it was over he had me tied and blindfolded and was threatening me with a pistol and after that 1 I dont think wed been going more than fifteen minutes before the car stopped and I 1 was made to get out and walk to in a little while I 1 could tell we were somewhere underground when they finally let me stop they put me ma into that wooden bucket thing untied my hands so I 1 could hold on and lowered me down here what does it all mean owen it seems seeing to mean that somebody or may be a bunch of some bodies wanted to get you yon and wally and me out of oc the way for some reason of course but why you know how we wally and I 1 drove through from carthage there thera were some startling things happened on the way we seemed to be close behind a gang of safe blowers since we were right behind them all the tha time wally and I 1 began to make inquiries qui rles along the road we soon learned that there were three men driving a few hours ahead of us business men from louisville they called themselves and from some suspicious circumstances we began to wonder it if they might not be the bank wreckers at it a little town in kansas car was stolen and run out in the country and smashed we then went by train as far as colby where wally bought another car nothing more happened until we were this bide aide of denver when he found that we were just behind the three men they were driving a car just before we reached colah we passed a stopped car on the mountain road and as we were running down the next loop below a big rock came tumbling down and barely missed us mercy how hor horrible riblet I 1 she shuddered did anything else hap happen peril yes we went on from colah that night and again the was waa ahead of us all the way across the red desert at a little village called atropia opla we had a flat tire and after we had changed to the spare we found we were out of gas we were delayed for some time and when we finally went on up the mountain we ran into another of the mysterious robberies the commissary at a mine had been looted and set on fire and two men who were guarding tho the safe and the payroll money were murdered of course there was no evidence that the three men in the had done it but wo we knew that their car had passed through atropia opla just before we got there he felt lier her shudder as she said it makes cold chills run up and down my back bacal I 1 Is there any more of it A little more we came on and as we were driving down the mountain road above lake topaz we saw something on fire in a deep gulch and wondered what it could be the next nert day we made inquiries in brewster to find out if the had come coma in the night before so far as we could learn it we spent that evening with mr starbuck and on our way back to the hotel we were set ripon by three men I 1 was sandbagged sandbagger sand bagged and knocked out but wally beat them oft off and helped me ma to the hotel the next day we thought wed see it if we find out what had become of the missing and drove up to the place where we had seen the fire in the gulch we left our car and climbed down to see sea what had burned it was a big car so badly wrecked that we could hardly tell what it was but I 1 guess it was the F another my mystery steryl I 1 Is that all not quite while we were looking at the wreck somebody began shooting at us from the road on the other side of the gulch we ducked and climbed up through the woods to where the tha shots had come from there were two men and the shooter said they had been told there were bears in the tha mountains and hed taken us for one there was nothing to he done about it so we let them go can you put it all together and make the pieces fit she asked after a fashion those three men we followed all the way nay from indiana are the bank robbers and they think weve got something on them that accounts for been happening to wally and me but it leaves you out maybe she said but she added nothing to that single word but see here owen went on were wasting time sitting here talking about has been this can mean only one thing that the scoundrels tire are going to pull off another of their robbing stunts and want to make sure of having a clear field we must get out of this and block their game what ever it may be do you know where this dungeon place Is or what it Is she asked i TO DB CONTINUED |