San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-10-05
Begin Here Today.

Loring Ranger offers a hundred
thousand dollars reward for the re-
turn of his daughter, Hope, who has
disappeared. Ranger is assisted in
his search By his two friends, Eus-
tice Highly, attorney, and Juarez
Charley, adventurer.
A message comes to Hopes father
instructing him to buy her hat
and leave it in certain place. This
command is carried out by Ranger
and later a picture of Hope, taken
in the hat, is sent to the girls father.
The next message from Hopes
captors tells Ranger to leave one
hundred thousand dollars worth of
bonds under a certain railroad
crossing. At DIR. Bristow's sanitari-
UNI George Kelsey and the supposed
sister of Nurse Copley become ac-
quainted. Now go on with the story.
He settled down now to unrelaxed
watchfulness. A long string of cars
came along from out of town, then
An almost equally long string from
the opposite direction; couple of
trucks: and then from the north a
lone flivver containing two men.
Just before it reached the cut,
trio of motors came up from the south
and the flivver stopped. its driver
getting out to fuss with the engine.
The three cars came up and passed.
Nothing else was in sight in either
direction. The driver of the flivver
climbed quickly back into his seat
and started for the cut.
1.-Two minutes is all I can allow
them Mt the most" Charlie whispered
cxcitedly.
The long indicator of the stop
watch swept around its circle. One
minute gone. Another round. and
still the car stayed down in the cut.
Before it came into view again. there
had elapsed exactly three MINUTES and
twenty seconds.
Hardly did the top of it appear
over the edge of the dip before
Charlie. slipping the stop-watch into
his pocket, swung down through the
branches.
He rushed across the "jungle,"
and Jerking his motorcycle out from
under its concealing pile of brush,
pulled it into the road. But when
he attempted TO start, he found the
mechanism gone dead. Impatiently
he leaned over to see what was the
matter. and found to his amazement
that the spark plug was missing.
Hastily he rummaged in his tool bag
for another. but although he would
have sworn he had three spare plugs,
there was none to be found.
Then he suddenly froze. On the
rude "X" within a circle-the sign
of the Combine.
The thing was plain enough to him
now. In spite of all his efforts at
camouflagc, his artful twists and
turns, the agents of the Combine had
evidently succeeded in trailing him
to the "iungle," and there while he
slept, had effectively put him out of
the running.
Charlie cast VI, his eyes. as he him.
self would have expressed it, like a
dying duck, ah,~ wretchedly shook
his head. He TVS facing down the
by-road toward irs. junction with the
Lone Hill road on the other side of
tut railway anu ltoN SNNPt
across his field of vision the suspect
ed flivver.
Driven hard in its progress toward
town, it had covered the distance
down from the archway during the
two or three minutes that he had
spent in lamcntation. Charles plan
had been to lead it along the high
way on his motorcycle and let it
overtake and pass him, so as not tc
give the suggestion of pursuit. Now
the sight of it. spinning tfiumphantly
by. only added poignancy to his humil-
iation.
I Then suddelt his fingers went
fnmbling at the leather case which
held his field-Plasses. He noticed
that the rear left wheel of the flivver
carried new tire. and remembering
that the Lone Hill road had just
been freshly oiled, it gave him new
idea.