Show ahl new the black lr ck box ba of of silence ko A by francis lynde lynda illustrations by 0 irwin myers service copyright jjr geracd ch chapmond Chapmo nl CHAPTER X continued 13 IN not nn quite that bod bad but it was pretty dreadful 11 As she ehe spoke there came the crack of a gun from somewhere on ahead and then another and a third betty put her hands to her ears and said dear met me I 1 are we going to get into more of it 1 I guerinot gue guess not sald said smith im inclined to think that was harding trying to stop those fellows A mile or more farther on they found the sheriff and two of his big deputies standing in the road markham pulled up tip and waited and smith got out of his car and walked on to speak to the sheriff my guess was right he said when n ho he came back they went by here merely hitting the high spots and harding tried to stop them shot at their tires tut but apparently missed the mark anyhow they stop I 1 told harding what they did to you and he says hell try to trail the scoundrels and bring em cm to book I 1 guess were safe to go on to town tiow now A few minutes fast driving brought them to the bridge over the and smiths car turned off to the railroad station the fast drive had been made in silence but after markham had helped hla his seat mate out at the curb the young woman broke it wally where could I 1 find you or owen quickly it if I 1 should need to the ehe asked why we are at the house ax aj you know yes but you are not there all the time markham did a lit bit of quick thinking are you asking seriously betty yes dont ask me why I 1 cant tell you yet but ril ill promise that one or the other ot of us will always be within reach of the hotel phone will that do yes thank you good night he waited until he had seen her mounting the porch steps before he drove away toward the business district on the way he was wondering why sho she had made her singular request and he was still wondering after after he had put hla his car up and was entering the tha lobby of the hotel looking for landis he be crossed to the counter the key to their suite was waa in its pigeonhole which meant that landals had not gone upstairs markham spoke to the clerk seen anything of mr Land Landl ls sli why yes yea he was wag right here a little while ago you dont know where dewent he went no I 1 hold on yes I 1 ido do too mr starbuck phoned for him from his office across the street and he went over there that markham Mar khara snapped mr starbuck in town lie ile went to colah last night to meet his wife and daugh daughter terl 1 he must have returned said the clerk the operator said tho the phone cill call was wai from him markham turned away vaguely disturbed an attempt had bad been made to kidnap him tind and only the opp opportune appearance of smiths car had bad made it fall had a similar attempt been made to trap landis As he hesitated he saw smith talking to three 0 of f the lately arrived guests at the cigar stand ile he turned to the clerk and asked it if he knew tha names of the three who were with smith 41 1 I do for it a fact they are the three gentlemen you were asking about when you came a week ago mr fleming mr cantrell and mr martin vi from louisville they have just come in on the nevada flyer 10 not driving no they started out to drive and came part of the way ivay by motor but they had bad luck with their car and left it at one of their stopovers markham looked again at the three men not in any single particular did they resemble the three who had been rg registering under the same names halfway across the continent and whom he and landis had seen leaving the lobby of the colah hotel in company with canby CHAPTER XI the surgeons kit at the discovery that the three men talking with smith were by no means the three who had traveled in the tha markhus markhams Mark Markh hams ms first impulse was waa to introduce himself promptly for the purpose of telling smiths friends frIend si what he be knew then he remembered that he had bad no proof to offer since the three name forgers had disappeared hla his next thought was to go tn in r search earch of landis As he went toward the hotel entrance he saw canby step out of an elevator and go quickly to shake shak e hands with the new arrivals and noticed that smith waved the three a good night and turned away a bit of byplay that seemed to say that he did not caro to be identified with canby markham stepped out upon the sidewalk and glanced up at the mine office windows they were lighted andee and be crossed the tha street and climbed the stair to the floor suite itte the door was waa opened by an elderly man tn in his shirt sleeves mr starbuck said markham Mark bam Is ig he here berer not knot nw now w a the prompt reply and then you are mr markham t IM glad to see you I 1 was jue juet t going to phone tho hotel to find out if you had come in you are needed word came a little while ago that professor lawson had bad been hurt by a landslide up at those fossil beds and mr starbuck got mr landis and a doctor and started up there in his car A few minutes ago they phoned and asked me to find you and send you after them with this picking up a black bag its the doctors instruments must have left thorn them here when he came up with mr starbuck 11 markham was deeply shocked at the news of the professors accident how badly Is doctor lawson hurt he asked pretty badly I 1 judge has his daughter been told she Is stopping with the 1 they call her up mr starbuck and mr landis both agreed that it was better not to tell her until they found out lust just how bad it Is where la Is this fossil place can I 1 find it in the night maybe you wont need to maybe overtake the other car I 1 can an show you how to go so you cant very well miss the way that Is it if you dont overtake mr starbuck and done played a mighty mean joke on you I 1 reckon upon a sheet of oc scratch paper the elderly man sketched a rude outline map penciling in the road that markham should take with the various right and left turns indicated by guiding arrows not much of a map he apologized but maybe it will do markham picked up the black bag saying it if they telephone again tell them im on the way and will try to overtake them at the hotel garage he called for his roadster and told the night man to fill the tank he got in to place the car for the filling keeping his seat I 1 until the man finished and came around tor for his hid pay for this reason a dark figure had its chance to slip unseen from the shadows of a nearby doorway to stoop for a brief moment at the rear of the car and thereafter to vanish as swiftly and silently as it had come once across the bridge and headed northward markham let the roadster out he was glad the bookkeeper had told him that starbuck and landis landals had not passed the distressing news on to betty thus saving her a long and heartbreaking interval of anxiety and uncertainty before the worst could be known for a time nothing intervened ta make him slacken speed with the paved road left behind however mark hams difficulties began and he had to get out the scratch paper map and follow its markings but after he had made the first two or three arrow in dilated turns a speed slackening became strictly obligatory the road was now degenerating into a country cart track among the hills spurred on by the sharp necessities markham kept the roadster in motion shifting gears only when he was obliged to in this manner he had made something over twenty speedometer miles of the tha bad going before he came io to the end on one of the rock lessof the hills the motor coughed a few times and stalled and not for any on of the starter would it yield another explosion he got his flashlight and climbed out to investigate so far as he could the ignition system was in perfect condition next he tested the fuel feed by trying to flood the carburetor but it flood with a malediction on his bis III luck he took off his coat got out the tool kit and began to take things apart to probe for the trouble though he was a fairly good chan chani ician clan the probing process proved to be a glutton of time and a long period of what he could well imagine might be a life and death delay for bettys father was wasted before he had satisfied himself that neither the gan gaa line nor the vacuum was responsible for the power failure etwas it was only as a last resort that he went to look at the gas tank gauge but a single aiming of the flashlight at gauge was enough though he was assured that he had left branster brawnier Braw nier ster with a supply of gasoline which nelch should have taken him five or six times the distance he had traveled the tank was now empty the small drain cock in t the he tan tank bottom was partly open with th the last residue of the liau liquid id fuel still dripping from it tinder other cond conditions ions and in view or what had already happened to him and landis since leaving carthage his suspicions would enva been awakened at once but laboring under this th burden of hla his responsibility as aa a doctors messenger he thought of nothing else and the half open drain cock merely suggested one of the many road accidents that way may happen obsessed by the thought that the life of bettys father might be hanging to in the balance for the lack of the instruments tn in the surgeons bag he snatched it and the penciled map out of the car and with the flashlight tor for a lantern started on afoot hour after hour he pushed over a road which finally became no road at all but upon which he could occasionally see the tracks of an automobile it was these faint tire marks that kept him going and it was not until t the he graying dawn found him halting to stare at a way worn car drawn up in front of a log cabin beside the road which here ended abruptly that the suspicion that he had been cleverly victimized struck him before he could recover from the blow the cabin door opened and an unshaven gray haired man came out to voice astonishment at finding that he had a visitor well well stranger I 1 where on top of earth did you tumble from he called out briefly and hurriedly markham explained pla ined and the gray hatred one laughed done played a mighty mean joke on you I 1 reckon ther aint the matter with old doctor Bone Bon hunter chunter as we call him ile he was down here to see it if j I 1 drive the lizzle lizzie to town utown and fetch him out some more picks and shovels the place where hes bone la Is only about six mile on through the hills he aint hurt none no nol I 1 I 1 reckon its a joke and ill say it was a mighty mean one you been tram tramp pin ln all night A good part of it said markham convinced now that he had been gotten out of brewster by subterfuge then overwhelmed by a sudden realization of what the plot might mean not only to himself but also to landis and possibly to betty it a joke its the way a bunch of crooks book to get me out of town and lost in these hills youve got a car and it will be worth a hundred dollar bill to you to get me back to my car and give me gas enough to run me to brewster will you yon do it it if I 1 had the gas I 1 hold you up for no robbin deal like that buti but 1 I aint got it dont reckon I 1 got moren enough to run to some place where I 1 kin borra enough to get in with moren that I 1 got to do a little on the lizzle lizzie afore shell run you come on in an well see what all we kin do with the he UT 1111 old buzz wagon markham entered the cabin with his host bost and helped him cook a breakfast of bacon and pan oread bread he learned that his entertainer was a prospector and that his name naine was jackson griggs also that he knew starbuck well sure I 1 know billy was the way he put it knowel him when he used to punch cows in other end ol 01 0 the park after breakfast they fell upon the outworn flivver the old machine was little more than a wreck overhauling killed all of the forenoon before it was completed a period in which mark hams anxiety became a maddening thorn in the flesh what had the plotters whoever they were been doing in his absence what had they done to landis that owen too had been put out of the way he could not doubt tor or a moment that was the meaning of the telephone call which had taken landis out of the the hotel a call doubtless sent by the gray haired accomplice who had gained access to the little alice offices and had posed as the bookkeeper then there was betty her danger as great as that which menaced landis and himself for she knew she must know that she was the one who at candys instigation had bad opened owens safe for the abstraction of the black box at the long last the car consented ft 0 ran and the return to brewster was hig hsiu un it was a slow business over ever the rie wretched road and markhams Mark Alark hams bams need of sleep was so overpowering that he be slept in his seat most of the way As griggs had predicted he be hart had barely gas enough to enable them to reach the first house bouse on the paved road but here they borrowed enough to bake make the run to town at the hotel entrance markham Mar khara pressed a liberal reward upon the old prospector and hurried tn As he passed through the revolving doors a man accosted him it was stillings and before he spoke markham had read the story of anxious worry in his face miss bettyl betty 1 said the lawyer quick i r do you know what has become of f her 1 I left her it at your house last night about nine do you mean to say she go into the house still tags ings interrupted sharply you aee ee her go in did yau no but I 1 r aw raw her go up the steps to the porch stillings explained rapidly we were a call on one ot the neighbors and when miss betty telephoned to say eay that you were staying at hillcrest Hlll Hil crest lerest for arner mrs still ings told tier her to look under the mat for the door key if she returned before we did we were back by half balf past bitne and the key where we left it and there was no orie one tn the house but the servants who lind had gone to bed the natural supposition was that miss betty was staying the night with the smiths but when wo we tried to call up and find out we wre were told the 11 line ile w was as out of order then wo we tried to get you here at the hotel ind were told yond been inand in and hail gone gona out again agnin TO ITO BIB |