The Holbrook news., 1922-12-29

l ~'oPN. w 1T tihc ShOAt Nos' ~N, we'll beat him there by a half-hour y
 Anita started.
 You mean the Argonaut tunnelF'
 Yes. Call up there and tell them to get q motor ready for us to shoot straight through. We can make 1t at thirty miles an hour, and the skip in the Reunion mine will get us to the surface in five minutes. The tunnel ends sixteen hundred feet under ground, about a thousand feet from Center City," he explained, as he noted Fairchild's wondering gaze. "You stay here. I'll be getting my car warmed up to take us to the tunnel"
 A humping sound came from with out. Harry entered with his two charges. followed shortly by Bardwell, the sheriff. while just beneath the of- flee window a motor roared in the process of warming up." A moment more and steel door changed upon the two men, while the officer led the way to his motor car. There he looked Iuizzically at Anita Richmond, piling without hesitation into the front seat.
 You going too?"
 | II certainly am," and she covered her intensity with a laugh, "there are number of things that I want to say to Mr. Maurice Rodaine-and haven't the patience to wait!'
 Bardwell chuckled. The doors of the car slammed and the engine roared louder than ever. Soon they were churning along through the driving snow toward the great buildings of the Argonaut Tunnel company, far at the other end of town. There men awaited them, and a tram motor, to- gether with its operator. The four pursuers took their places on the benches of the car behind the motor. The trolley was attached. Then clat- tering over the frogs, green lights flashing from the trolley wire, the speeding journey was begun.
 Three miles, four, five, while Anita Richmond held close to Fairchild as the speed became greater and the sparks from the wire above threw their green, vicious light over the yawning stretch before them. A last squirt, ! slightly down-grade, with the motor pushing the wheels at their greatest velocity; then the cracking of cleo tricity suddenly ceased, the motor slowed in its progress, finally to stop.
 A greasy being faced them and Bard well, the sheriff, shouted his mission.
 "Got to catch some people that are making a getaway through Center City. Can you send us up in the skip?''
 "Yes, two at time."
 l "All right !" The sheriff turned to Harry. You and I'll go on the first trip and hurry for the Ohadi road. Fairchild and Miss Richmond will wait for the second and go to Sheriff Ma sons office and tell him what's up. Meet us there," he said to Fairchild, as he went forward.
 A long wait followed while Fairchild strove to talk of many things-and failed in all of them. Things were happening too swiftly for them to be put into crisp sentences by a man whose thoughts were muddled by the fact that beside him waited girl in whipcord riding suit-the same girl who had leaped from an automobile on the Denver highway and
 It crystalized things for him momen. tarily.
 "I'm going to ask you something after a while-something that I've wondered and wondered about. know it wasn't anything-but-"
 She laughed at him.
 You really didn't think I was the Shelter bandit, did you?'
 "Darned if I know what I thought And I don't know what I think yet"
 'Tts very, very awful" came in a low, mock-awed voice. "But-" then the laugh came again-"maybe If you're good and-well, maybe I'll tell you after a while."
 "Honest?"
 Of course I'm honest! Isn't that the skip?"
 Fairchild walked to the skip, stepped in, and lifted Anita to his side. | The journey was made in darkness darkness which Fairchild longed to turn to his advantage, darkness which seemed to call to him to throw his arms about the girl at his side, to crush her to him, to seek out with an instinct that needed no guiding light the laughing, pretty lips which had caused him many day of happiness, many a day of worried wonderment. He strove to talk away the desire but the grinding of the wheels in the narrow shaft denied that. His fingers twitched his arms trembled as he sought to hold back the muscles, then, yielding to the impulse, he started
 "Da-a-a-g-gone it!"
 | "What's the matter?"
 Nothing"
 But Fairchild wasn't telling the truth. They had reached the light just at the wrong, wrong moment. Out of the skip he lifted her, then inquired the way to the sheriff's office of this, a new county. The direction was giv- en, and they went there. They told their story. You say Bardwell and your partner went out on the Ohadi road to head the young 'un off"
 "Yes Do you think-?" But a noise from without cut off the conversation. Stamping feet sounded on the steps, the knob turned, and Sheriff Bardwell, snow-white, entered, shaking himself like a great dog, as he sought to rid himself of the effects of the blizzard.
 "Hello, Bardwell, what'd you find?"