United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Dunke stuck his candle in a niche of the ragged granite wall, strode across to his former partner in crime, and took the man by the throat. "I'll learn you to keep that vile tongue of yours still," he said between set teeth, and shook the hapless man till he was black in the face. Struve hung, sputtering and coughing, against the wall where he had been thrown.
The thought of action came to her too late. As Dunke stepped back to give the signal for attack she cried out his name, but her voice was drowned in the yell of rage that filled the street. She tried to spur her horse into the crowd, to force a way to the men standing with such splendid fearlessness above this thirsty pack of wolves.
Collins, Mr. Dunke," she said. The steel probes shifted from Struve to her. "What did you hear, Miss Kinney? This man is a storehouse of lies. I let him run on to see how far he would go." Struve's harsh laugh filled the tunnel. "Take me to Mrs. Collins," she reiterated wearily. "Not till I know what you heard," answered Dunke doggedly. "I heard everything," she avowed boldly.
His cry still rang through the tunnel when Margaret saw a gleam of distant light. She pointed it out to Struve, who wheeled and fastened his eyes upon it. Slowly the faint yellow candle-rays wavered toward them. A man was approaching through the gloom, a large man whom she presently recognized as Dunke. A quick gasp from the one beside her showed that he too knew the man.
"Yes, ma'am. Got away slick and clean." "Where?" barked Dunke. "Where what, my friend?" "Where did you take him?" Larry laughed in slow deep enjoyment. "I hate to disappoint you, but if I told that would be telling. No, I reckon I won't table my cards yet a while. If you're playing in this game of Hi-Spy go to it and hunt." "Perhaps you don't know that I am T. J. Dunke." "You don't say!
"We'll go back this passage along the way you came. I want to find Mr. Dunke. I allow I've got something to tell him he will be right interested in hearing." He picked up the candle and led the way along the tunnel. Margaret followed him in silence. The convict shambled forward through the tunnel till he came to a drift which ran into it at a right angle. "Which way now?" he demanded.
Electric lights were twinkling at intervals down the tunnel, and an electric ore-car with a man in charge was waiting to run them into the workings nearly a mile distant. Dunke dealt out candles and assisted his guests into the car, which presently carried them deep into the mine.
The girl in the blackness without the candle-shine moved slightly. "What's that?" asked Dunke, startled. "What's what?" "That noise. Some one moved." Dunke's revolver came swiftly from his pocket. "I reckon it must a-been the girl." "What girl? Miss Kinney?" Dunke's hard eyes fastened on the other like steel augers. Margaret came forward and took wraithlike shape. "I want you to take me to Mrs.
I thought so. That's enough." "And you were alone with him why, you must have been alone with him all night," cried Dunke, coming to a fresh discovery. "I was," she admitted very quietly. A new suspicion edged itself into his mind. "What did you talk about? Did he say anything about Did he He always was a terrible liar. Nobody ever believed Wolf Struve."
Up one incline was a shaft-house with a great gray dump at the foot of it. This they left behind them, climbing the hill till they came to the summit. The ranger pointed to another shaft-house and dump on the next hillside. "That's the Mal Pais, from which the district is named. Dunke owns it and most of the others round here.
Word Of The Day