The watcher waited. He listened for something to indicate where the arrival from the cavern had gone. No clew came. The Shadow, creeping through the blackness of the half-buried rock, was returning over his corkscrew course with the utmost skill. That being of blackness could feel his way over ground once established. The Shadow’s caution was supreme.
Long, tense minutes passed. The man who watched was breathing heavily. Lying still, he gave sounds that could reveal him to listening ears; but The Shadow, with silent motion, had faded into nothingness.
At last, after twenty minutes, the spy became impatient. He had seen no new trace of the light; he inferred that the person below had gone away through the darkness.
It was then that the watched moved. He emerged from trees into moonlight, and cautiously urged his way toward the side of the rock. His own flashlight glimmered, focused on the ground. Step by step, it revealed a rocky path; and after short difficulties, the new searcher found himself before the opening in the ground.
A muffled gasp of elation came from the man’s lips. Probing cautiously into the gap, he used his light as a guide, and entered. Sure that the stranger of the night had departed, he could not resist the desire to conduct an investigation of his own.
After the second searcher had disappeared a new phenomenon took place. Silent motion occurred among the saplings where the spy had lain.
A soft laugh came from hidden lips as the form of The Shadow rose into the fringe of moonlight. Keen eves glistened from beneath the brim of a slouch hat. The folds of a black cloak hung shroud-like from The Shadow’s shoulders.
Coming softly through the blackness. The Shadow had sensed the presence of the spy. He had waited, a creature of invisibility. It had become his turn to watch.
More minutes elapsed. The Shadow, aware of every action that the spy had taken, was waiting for the man’s return. The patience was rewarded. A glimmering ray of light announced that the second prober was returning.
At last his figure became plain as he emerged from the cavern and picked his way, by lighted steps, back up the rock. When the man reached the saplings, The Shadow was no longer there. Flat upon a ledge of overhanging rock, the being of darkness lay invisible.
The second searcher nervously made his course off through the trees. Intermittent flashes showed the route that he was taking. All during that passage a figure stalked close behind his heels. The Shadow was following him to his destination.
This proved to be the shack which The Shadow had observed from the air. Not far from the cavern, it formed a hidden abode among the trees.
The man’s business there was brief but active. In the dim glow of an oil lamp, he gathered together various articles of food, blankets, tools. Bundling these, he extinguished the lamp and took it also. Then he emerged from the shack, and went back toward the hidden cavern, using his intermittent flashlight to guide the way.
Through the window of the shack, The Shadow’s probing eyes had seen all. Now, once again, The Shadow was following the unwitting man who believed that he had gone. Observed had become observer. That was The Shadow’s way.
WHILE the man laboriously lowered his burden from a ledge of rock, The Shadow’s eyes still watched. When the man had finally reached the entrance to the cavern, the one who peered from darkness still remained unseen. At last, the flickering of a flashlight proved that the man from the shack had entered the cavern to stay.
The Shadow had learned the man’s purpose. The cave which be had discovered and probed would be his abode.
A low, sinister laugh sounded through the moonlit night. The Shadow, too, had probed that cavern. He knew and understood the purpose which had guided the man there.
For The Shadow, keenly watchful, had seen the face of the man who had entered the cave. He had divined the fellow’s purpose. Well had The Shadow studied the motives and cross-purposes that were rampant in this vicinity, where crime and death had come.
New action lay ahead. The Shadow’s weird laugh betokened the activity of his mighty brain. The way to wealth had been discovered. It could be laid open to Carter Boswick now.
The Shadow’s aerial visit had been made with the purpose of nullifying crime. Its successful result had proven to The Shadow’s liking. The presence of the watching man from the shack had proven an unexpected factor. But The Shadow included even this in his calculations.
A moving form of obscure proportions flitted through the trees. The figure stopped beside the autogiro, and noiselessly stepped aboard. The motor purred with rhythm. No ears could hear it now. The one man in this locality had buried himself beneath the earth.
The blades above the ship were whirling. The autogiro moved forward. Its wheel lumbered across a smooth extent of rock, headed directly for dangerous, jagged points beyond the flat ledge. Before the wheel reached those menacing barriers of stone, the autogiro was in the air. Its flight was tending upward. It cleared the fringe of trees, and rose perfectly into the moonlight.
The ascent reached the vertical. The Shadow’s ship hovered over the moon-bathed scene. The opening of the cavern was almost invisible now. The little shack, however, showed plainly among the trees. The cabin and the gaping hole of the vertical mine shaft were evident in the clearing.
Out of the air had The Shadow come. Into the air he had gone. He had learned the secret guarded by Houston Boswick he had also witnessed another make the same discovery.
The plane headed rapidly southward. The Shadow had another brief mission on this night.
The loud eerie laugh that mingled with the whirring of the autogiro was the only sound that betokened The Shadow’s purpose. That mockery, somehow, seemed to indicate that The Shadow’s departure was only temporary. Soon he would return to this spot in the wilderness.
What then? What would be the outcome?
Would Carter Boswick and Harry Vincent find the long-sought wealth awaiting them? How did the man who had entered the cavern figure in the plot? What action would come from Hub Rowley and the unknown man who was working with him?
All depended upon circumstance; yet the guiding forces were the purposes of those who figured in this strange drama. The unraveling of twisted threads was necessary to view the future in an understanding way.
The Shadow, alone, had made such progress. Whether the future would result in complications, one positive result must be forthcoming; and could be, after The Shadow made his return.
The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SHADOW’S CHART
HARRY VINCENT awoke with a start. The dim light of dawn was hazy through the window of his hotel room. Everything seemed dim and obscure. Sitting up in bed, Harry stared about the room. Had he been dreaming? Or had he heard his name whispered weirdly in his ear?
There was no sign of any one in the room. It would have been quite possible for a person to have entered, whispered that name, and then left while Harry was coming to consciousness. The door was closed, however, and Harry had not heard the slightest sound from that direction.
Two factors made Harry positive that he had been awakened by some one from outside. The first was that Harry seldom dreamed; the second, that he was constantly expecting some token from The Shadow. Under the circumstances, he decided to investigate.
He turned on a lamp that rested on the table beside his bed. The light revealed an envelope lying beneath it. Harry knew then that he had not been the victim of imagination. The Shadow had come into this room at the Summit Lake Hotel, and had left a message for him.
The envelope contained a note, brief and explicit in its directions. The coded writing faded.
But the envelope also held another sheet of paper — one inscribed in black ink, which did not disappear. Harry found himself staring at the detail of a well-formed chart — an exact map of the vicinity where he and Carter Boswick had found the abandoned mining cabin.