| Show tad adventurers CLUB 06 HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF hell underground by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter H HELLO ELLOE heres EVERYBODY a d detective who had a hobby and because he had he caught a man he and because a hobby he caught a man came mighty darned near losing his life the way ive set that down makes it sound a little like that old nursery favorite of yours and mine the house that jack built but as a matter of fact its the story that jack told fellow adventurers meet jack shea of new york city and listen to the yarn hes going to spin us in the spring of 1922 jack was working for a well known detective agency he told me the name but he wants me to leave it out because well detective agencies dont like too much publicity about the cases they handle this agency sent him out on a case for which he was especially ally adapted jacks hobby is fungi you know mushrooms toadstools toad stools and the like the job he was to do was to run down a fellow named fritz last name also omitted by request a fellow six feet two inches tall light complexion military bearing and like jack interested in fungi found his man in a michigan mine jack traced fritz to an address in camden N J and from there to st louis mo from there the trail led through chicago milwaukee hancock mich and finally ended in calumet mich where jack was told that fritz was working in a copper mine called the quincy shaft it was the spring of 1923 a year after he had started when jack finally got to the same town his man was in but still he know what the man looked like he got a job as assistant timekeeper at the mine and began looking the miners over then one day jack found a bed of fungi down in the mine shaft he picked up a handful of them and carried them to the surface he carried them around until he saw a man who answered fritzs general de ak Z I 1 Z vi T arx ready to bring it down on jacks cranium eyeing the fungi with interest he stopped jack and told him the species was poisonous and be eaten then jack was pretty sure he had his man spotted jack stood talking to the man for a while they got along great because they had a common interest before they parted they made an appointment to go down into the mine on the following sunday to look for fungi they took one of the stationary engineers into their confidence and he agreed to lower them down in a mine car down feet into the earth that sunday they met at the mine entrance at 1030 a m the stationary engineer a fellow named barry was there too they climbed clim into the car and were soon at the bottom feet below the earth we explored the bottom of the mine for about a quarter of a mile says jack with carbide lamps on our hats and wearing rubber coats the temperature was about a hundred degrees since the farther you go down the warmer and more humid it gets when we had been there about twenty five minutes and had found a few specimens of fungus we returned to the car for the trip back As we got into the car I 1 noticed a copper ingot lying on the floor and wondered how it got there those ingots ingols weigh about forty pounds apiece and come in a size that can be conveniently stacked along the railroad sidings for shipment I 1 took the top seat way up in the front of the car fritz took the second seat from the rear end where the bells and buttons which signalled signal led the engineer were attached the car started moving and went half way up the slope drawn by the metal cable from above then it stopped suddenly I 1 know it then but fritz had halted it with a signal he was about to brain jack when the car stopped jack turned to look at fritz that move saved his life for there was fritz the copper ingot in his hands holding it high above his head ready to bring it down on jacks own cranium somehow he had found out that jackway jack was a detective out to get him and he was going to get jack first if he could 1 I 1 ducked says jack and the ingot hit me a glancing blow on my left shoulder I 1 was stunned for a minute nevertheless my senses left me but I 1 must have fought on automatically for when I 1 came to again I 1 found myself half out of the car gripping the edge with my fingers while fritz was trying to break my grip and throw me over the side usually I 1 carried a small automatic revolver but this time I 1 had orders to bring my man back alive and hence carried a different sort of weapon it was a 25 caliber gun loaded not with ordinary bullets but a cartridge that carried a chemical compound comp aund instead of a bullet when it heated it flowed over the flesh in a good imitation of blood 1 I got that gun out and fired it it gave a loud report and sprayed fritzs hands with the concoction when he saw that he said stop im shot and gave up the battle tv fritz know he actually been shot until he was back at ground level again and jack had him safely locked up in a mine storeroom later he was taken to the local jail and later still extradited to the state that wanted him for trial he was sentenced to jail for awen twenty ty years at hard labor says jack but that half make up for the forty years growth he scared me out of s copyright service |
