The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1916-07-23

manned the menace of his brutal COM
panions.
She did not know that the sudden
and mysterious disappearance of
Black Tony had proved too much for
even the iron nerve of those crime
hardened gunner.
Tony must have fallen down an
old shaft, but that's no reason for
your throwing a flt," Legar said in a
voice that was trifle unsteady,
maybe the girls down there, too.
Get one Of those lights off the wall
and well take q look at that man
trap"
spurred on by a curse from his
grim-faced leader, the heavy-set
gangster called Mack advanced
slowly and with some trepidation
toward a. tallow dip sputtering In a
bracket fixed against the inky black
wall. AS he fumbled at that bracket
with thick and clumsy fingers, a
fearful and grewsome thing hap
pened. Suspended high over his head
and connected with the wall bracket
by slender wire. invisible in the
semi-darkness, was a massive iron
crowbar, its beveled edge sharpened
to a razor-like fineness. The coarse
fingers brushing against an ingenious
trigger had instantly released that
deadly weapon hanging in midair.
1t dropped straight down like a plum
met and catching the unsuspecting
gunman squarely on the head, split
his skull like an egg shell. He
dropped like slaughtered steer and
lay, limp and motionless. in the
midst of that slowly creeping crimson
stain.
But the supernatural horrors of
those subterranean vaults were still
to be exhausted. For O. moment
Dutch Frank. the blond gangster,
stared in white-faced CONSERVATION
at that CHASTITY figure stretched be-
fore him. Then. with a sudden bleat
OF terror, he turned from that ap-
palling sight and fed blindly along
the dusky tunnel toward the ladder
leading to the upper world. In his
mad rush to escape from those Ill
omened vaults of death he Numbered
heavily against an old and decaying
mine prop.
The age-rotted timber crumbled
like paper under the forceful blow
from the shoulder Of the racing blond
giant, and with the suddepness of a
cloudburst, a great section of deep
assured rock, which rooted the tun-
mel, fell with sullen roar onto the
struggling gangster, crushing out his
life and blocking up the passage.
AS the muttering echoes aroused by
that landslide slowly subsidized. Legar
realized that the hand of death had
robbed him of the last of his evil fol-
lowers, and his savage courage en-
tirely forsook him. Obsessed with
mad desire to escape from the en-
comprising shadows, he frantically
tore at the rocks which now checked
his egress.
It was with new misgivings that
the girl. crouching in the stygian
gloom Of the walled-in crypt on the
lower level Of the abandoned mine,
heard the muffied roar accompanying
the cascade of rocks into the tunnel.
Perhaps Legar, giving up his fruit
less search, but knowing she must be-
hidden somewhere in that maze Of
galleries, had so blocked the tunnel
as to cut off the scant air supply and
was leaving her to a lingering death
by suffocation.
But these appalling conjectures
were suddenly banished by a danger
which threatened dirs and immediate
results. Her enemy lying under the
trap-door where he had fallen now
gave unmistakable signs Of returning
consciousness.
Presently he would commence to
explore his surroundings and the girl,
separated by only a few feet Of en-
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