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Updated: May 18, 2025
This was a local sheet, containing a notice of the death of Judge Henley, which I took time to read. The letters were in such scraps I could not even decipher the address. One fact, however, was revealed some man had been sleeping up here lately, and it was not Coombs, but a much smaller Individual.
"Your name and business," said the voice of Sergeant Macfarlane; and a disappointed laugh followed my reply as that worthy added, "Then if ye have no' been raiding Coombs lately ye can pass, friend. Seen no one on the prairie? I'm sorry. Four cattle-lifting rustlers held up Clearwater Creek, and we're going south for the next post to head them off from the boundary. Well, time is precious.
Your father had Johnny Coombs with him when he left Sun Lake City. They signed out as a team ... and then Johnny came back to Mars on the first shuttle ship." "How come?" "Not even Johnny knows. Your father just sent him back, and there was nothing we could do about it then. The U.N. has no jurisdiction in the belt, unless a major crime has been committed."
"He caught the stunner beam in the shoulder, and it will be a while before he can use it, but Johnny Coombs will be hard to keep down." They had promised Johnny to return later. They had had check-ups themselves. Both Tom's eyes were surrounded by purple splotches, and his broken left arm was in a sling. Greg's arms and legs were so stiff he could hardly move them.
We intended going back home and giving it all up as a bad job, if this last hope failed, and we didn't locate old Coombs in the place he once lived, they told me." Max uttered a cry. "What was that name you spoke, sir?" he asked. "Why, the name of the lunatic that broke out, and has given us all this chase over the blessed country; Wesley Coombs his full name is.
"Of course," explained the young fur farmer, while they were watching the inmates of the second enclosure, "I don't have black cats up here yet to carry out them directions exactly; but I'm aiming to do that also pretty soon. Yep, and after this set o' pups has been sold, if they fetch all I count on, I'm goin' to have a talk with the lawyer that looks after Mr. Coombs' estate.
That big chair he loved to sit in when the fire was agoin'. But jest as he got fixed so nice his wife sent for him to come back home; and, say, he had to go. So, havin' no use for his place here, he turned it over tuh me for a song, I c'n show yuh the bill o' sale. Yuh see, I got to know Mr. Coombs right well, for he was interested in my ijee o' startin' a fur farm. Well, he's dead now.
Whatever mystery surrounded this house, whatever of crime lurked in the neighborhood, I became determined to solve. For the moment I forgot even Mrs. Bernard, and my own assumed character, in the excitement of this new chase. "Ze right; turn to ze right, M'sieur," said a voice behind me, and then I saw Coombs standing before the door of the second cabin.
Perhaps Wesley Coombs was a person of very little importance in himself; but he had been sought for so long that his recapture would bring considerable satisfaction along with it. "To the best of my knowledge and belief, he is," replied Max, chuckling to think how he was in a condition to know, and enjoying the prospect of springing a surprise upon the two wardens of the asylum.
Somewhere in the ship Johnny Coombs and Greg Hunter were prisoners ... but now, Tom knew, there was a way to escape. It was a completely different world, a world within a world, a world of darkness and silence, of a thousand curving and intersecting tunnels, some large, some small.
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