Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1910-01-23

knew some of their secrets. AS he shed
his light upon the solid sheet of metal
confronting him, he was convinced
that somewhere was a spring that
would open the way into the cellar of
the Castle of Gloom.
Van Tasel felt like a burglar, and yet
to turn away from so fascinating a
puzzle was intolerable. He raped with
his knuckles over every inch of the sur
face. He ran his fingers over the steel.
He scrutinized and peered and puzzled
until his eyes ached.
Suddenly, while leaning against the
iron rail in cogitation he recalled cas-
tie in Hungary His guide, he remem-
bered, had taken MIN through similar
tunnel that led from the cellar to the
face of a mountain.
1.-THE spring that released the secret
door," he mumbled, was in the cell
ing.
He set to work with renewed energy.
Some of the mortar had fallen from
the roof, and it took him but a few
moments to spy the magic button. 1t
clicked family when he pressed it, The
lock was released, but the rusty hinges
failed to respond.
Van Tasel got the door open, after
half an hours work. Utter darkness
enveloped him as he crawled through
the aperture. The air was vile with
mould, and a rat scampered over his
feet. Yet here he was, in Mildred Bolt
woods castle! He was certain the un-
foreground entrance was unknown to
her. On any ordinary occasion he
would have delighted in making his
way to the upper apartments and sur
prising Miss Boltwood with his strange
discovery. This was no time for sur
prises-no time to break into the castle
from the bowels of the earth.
He had turned off his electric search
light, but now, satisfied that he was in
a part of the cellar untenanted, he
shed it's glow about him. Stone walls
hemmed him in. Before him was an
irons grated door, standing half open.
He explored the passages until, turn
ing a bend, he suddenly saw patch
of light above and heard voices. Then
he beat a retreat
Before going out through the secret
door at the top of the iron stairway
he searched out the button on the in
ner side and made sure he could work
it. Then, closing the heavy panel, he
descended.
The transition from the blackness
and chill of the tunnel to the balmy
air of the summers evening was like
passing from Hades to Paradise. He
drew long breaths and Strengthened his
shoulders.
With searchlight extinguished. Van
Tasel took careful note of the spot so
that he might find it again. Concealed
as it was in dense shrubbery and I'M
der a rock, one unfamiliar with the
tunnel might indeed search long and
fruitlessly. Yet for a person who
knew just where it was it would be
easy to disembark from a rowboat in
the Hudson and reach the tunnel en-
trance with few steps up the craggy
slope.
Van Tasel sat for time in deep
meditation. 1t all seemed like the fig
ment of a romancer-the frowning cas-
tie above him, the underground en-
trance, the mysterious men who haunt
ed the cliff! Most of all, the secret of
Mildred oltwood-revealed to him in
a fiash-seemed more like a fantasy.
His was romance quite apart from
the rush and roar of New York-New
York, so much absorbed in itself that
it did not know a castle existed within
it's shadows.
HLADTED WIN