A cry from above. A light wavered. Then came answering shots. Harry twinkled out his flashlight. He motioned the others down the slope. They plunged to the safety of darkness.
Yards back, Trebold was snarling at his men. One of the ruffians had fallen; another was holding a wounded arm. The supervisor rasped an order.
“Keep after them!” was his command. “We’ve got them blocked if they try to come back! But there’s more of us than them. Get going—”
Trebold stopped short. A strange sound had struck his ears. It did not come from down in the passage.
It was back by the main shaft of the Quest mine, close by the turn that he and his squad had made.
The sound was the quiver of a sinister laugh. Scoffing, mocking, it rose as an eerie taunt within these rock-vaulted walls. Fierce gibes rose to a wild crescendo. The mirth broke, to send reverberating echoes down the passage.
Trebold wheeled with his flashlight. He threw the beam toward that entrance from the shaft. His light picked out a ghostlike shape, a cloaked form that looked like a living phantom.
Blurting a cry, Trebold raised his arm to fire. His hand trembled at sight of that shape that looked like some vengeful gnome or kobold. To the startled eyes of Trebold’s band, The Shadow was a specter that ruled these depths. They, too, felt dread; but, like their leader, they were ready to fire.
Shots preceded theirs. Automatics roared, with muzzles pointed down the slope. Tongued flames brought loud cries. Men staggered, firing wildly.
Trappers were trapped. Breaking while their fellows fell, villains stumbled downward, firing vain shots as they went.
Lights were out. This was a battle of gun flame in the dark. A fight by venomous men against an invisible foe who had the advantage of the corner where the side corridor met the main shaft.
Villains fired at the blaze of automatics. The Shadow aimed for revolver muzzles as they flashed. Low in the shelter of the main shaft peering through the semi-loophole of a jagged rock, he again held a strength that mocked at odds.
Shots from above; shots from below. Both lessened. Flashes were less frequent; but The Shadow’s fire was ever hard upon that of the foe. Final shots resounded. Stillness followed.
Then, through the silence, came the tones of a chilling laugh. The strange shudder sounded above groans.
Issued from blackness, it quivered through depths that were Stygian.
Complete silence came as the creepy mirth ended. The Shadow had fought another battle. Again, he was invisible in the hushed depths of the Quest mine. Once more, it seemed as though walls of rock had swallowed the master of the dark.
CHAPTER XVII. THE PATH TO SAFETY
ONCE again, hunted men had been deceived by The Shadow’s strategy. Harry Vincent, as well as Rex Brodford and Vic Marquette, had given a wrong significance to the shots that had echoed from behind them.
They had taken to temporary flight after crippling two of Trebold’s mob. But they would have been fools to have stayed where they were. Dashing downward in this corridor, they reached a low level before they stopped.
Shots from behind had spurred them onward until they reached an upward slope. Then, amid silence, they held council regarding the next step. First they discussed the wild outburst that they had heard.
“A parcel of fools,” was Vic Marquette’s comment. “They saw us duck. Yet they stayed there, shooting after us. Wasting bullets on nothing.”
“Maybe they have plenty of ammunition,” put in Harry. “If they have, it wasn’t wasted. It drove us deeper.”
“So deep we’re going up,” chimed in Rex.
“That’s right,” remarked Vic. “Say — maybe we’re in for a lucky break after all. When a passage goes up, it may go out!”
“Maybe,” grunted Harry. “My idea, though, would be to creep back. Surprise those guys the way we did before. Clip one or two of them and make them fire away.”
“They’ll be expecting that the next time we pull it,” objected Rex. “Look here, Harry: If we go on while it’s quiet, we’ll have time to come back. I think those chaps were trying to scare us.”
“Sure,” agreed Harry, “so we’d dive in deeper.”
“No,” commented Vic, “that doesn’t hold. They think that we’re coming back. They’re waiting. We’ve got time to take a trip along this corridor. Even if it is blocked it may give us a stronghold.”
“Perhaps another side passage,” reminded Rex.
“All right,” consented Harry. “Let’s go ahead. Make it fast.”
They traveled up a way; then risked a light. The corridor continued steadily upward. New hopes came to the trapped men as they persisted in their journey. At last Vic Marquette’s torch showed a blank wall.
“This ends it,” decided Harry.
“Let’s take a look,” suggested Rex.
They continued toward the wall. When they arrived there, Vic Marquette grunted a discovery. The bearded man placed his hand upon a smooth surface. He picked out a vertical crack.
“Looks like a slab,” remarked Vic. “Sort of a door, even if it is smooth stone. Let’s see if we can wedge it.”
They tried. The surface yielded. It moved away as Harry pressed. The motion was slight. Harry shoved his shoulder hard and Rex aided with a shove. The slab moved on a hinge. Then it struck a barrier.
“Space enough to wedge through,” said Harry. “Only, there’s something on the other side.”
“Don’t try to squeeze through,” warned Vic. “Get this slab open all the way. Lean on it. Hit it hard.”
In unison, the trio threw themselves against the doorlike barrier. They budged it a foot. Again they struck; this time, there was a terrific clatter on the other side. The slab swung wide.
HARRY, by the opening, went plunging headlong. He sprawled upon a stone floor. Toppling upon him came a stack of logs. One piece of wood struck glancingly on Harry’s head and laid him groggy.
Vic Marquette turned on his light. His first thought was for Harry. Rex Brodford also forgot the surroundings as he aided Vic to bring Harry to his feet. Pieces of wood lay in a loose stack. They sat Harry down upon the logs.
“I’m all right,” grunted Harry to Rex. “Say — what did I get into, anyway?”
Vic Marquette was spreading the beam of his light. The Secret Service man spoke in puzzled answer.
“Some kind of a cellar,” he exclaimed. “Say this is a funny ending for a mine shaft! This slab we shoved was in back of a stack of cordwood. That’s what we knocked over. We’d have done better to have squeezed through and wiggled out in back of it.”
“Cordwood?” queried Rex. He looked up, then stepped out into the range of Vic’s light. He uttered a startled exclamation as he saw other objects beyond the scattered logs.
“Say, Harry!” blurted Rex. “Do you know where we are? We’re—”
Rex never finished the sentence. At that instant, a light flashed on. The whole cellar was revealed by illumination from the ceiling. Harry Vincent, looking about, knew where he was without Rex Brodford’s explanation.
The three fugitives had crashed their way into Cortland Laspar’s cellar! The passage that they had followed had dipped below the level of Lake Chalice. It had traveled through the rock beneath the sand bar and up to this house upon the point.
SOMEONE had heard the clatter. Someone upstairs. That was why the light had been turned on. The sheathed door had opened at the head of the stairs.
Harry reached for his gun as he heard footsteps. Rex and Vic followed suit.
A gray-haired man came into view, peering cautiously. Rex uttered a cry as he recognized Cortland Laspar. He sprang forward to announce his identity to the lumber magnate.
Cortland Laspar came further down as he heard Rex’s voice. He was carrying a rifle that he had brought from his living room rack; he dropped the muzzle of the weapon as he recognized Rex Brodford.