A Mystery Story for Boys

The
GRAY SHADOW

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

COPYRIGHT 1931
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I [Here To-day and Away To-morrow] 11 II [The Mysterious Sentry] 21 III [A Cold Scent] 39 IV [A Momentous Decision] 43 V [Marked Money] 56 VI [The Mysterious Package] 68 VII [A Surprise Party] 83 VIII [Fire Underground] 86 IX [A Moment of Grim Silence] 97 X [“Find That Man”] 103 XI [The Doors Close] 110 XII [A Lady Detective] 116 XIII [Secret Service] 127 XIV [“The Voice”] 135 XV [A Heavy Date] 138 XVI [An Isle of Mysteries] 148 XVII [Johnny Hears the Voice] 161 XVIII [In the Tunnel at Night] 166 XIX [A Night’s Grim Battle] 170 XX [“We Will Dig Here”] 178 XXI [Only a Voice] 185 XXII [The Nameless One] 190 XXIII [The Face in the Night] 197 XXIV [A Visit from “The Ferret”] 205 XXV [The Shadow Passes] 212 XXVI [The Rising Tide of Anger] 221 XXVII [The Creaking Stairs] 228 XXVIII [Two Ankles and a Scream] 237 XXIX [Joyce Frames One] 244 XXX [From Out the Clouds] 252 XXXII [The Trail Leads North] 257 XXXII [The Place of Rendezvous] 260 XXXIII [The Shadow Falls] 265 XXXIV [The Passing of the Voice] 271 XXXV [Good News] 278

THE GRAY SHADOW

CHAPTER I
HERE TO-DAY AND AWAY TO-MORROW

“Roll up! Tumble up! Anyway to get up! If you can’t get up, roll your money up. For we’re here to-day and away to-morrow!”

This curious bit of philosophy coming from the lips of Johnny Thompson, youthful world traveler and adventurer, even to himself seemed strange. Yet here he was barking his wares at the “Greatest of all Carnivals.”

He had learned those words at a county fair when a boy of seven. That they were as effective now as then was attested by the crowds of men and women that thronged about his booth. All were eager to place a dime on the square and win (if luck were with them) a basket of groceries at the turn of the wheel of fortune that spun so freely at Johnny’s touch.

“I don’t like this business,” Johnny had said to a friend only an hour before. “A few win. The rest go away empty handed.”

“I know,” his friend had agreed. “But then, after all, it’s only a dime for each one. And it’s part of the carnival. Look at those people. Do you ever think much about them? Look at their faces. Not much of a life they lead. The men work in factories putting bolts into places; same kind of bolt in the same kind of place all day long. Perhaps they lift a casting from one place and drop it down in another. The women stay at home and scrub and cook. Carnival comes but once a year. Let them have their fun.”

Johnny’s friend had cheered him up a bit so he went about his barking with a smile:

“We’re here to-day and away to-morrow.”

“For all that,” he assured himself, “I’ll flit as soon as some big thing breaks.”

Ah, yes, that was it, “some big thing.” Johnny was here for a purpose. The dimes that came, the baskets of groceries that passed over the counter, interested him very little. He was looking all the time for faces, certain faces, and thinking how he would mingle more and more with the men and women who were by profession followers of the Carnival. And all this for one high purpose.

So now with the bright lights dazzling his eyes and the incessant tumult of sounds, organs grinding, hawkers hawking, merry-makers screaming, he kept at his task of the moment, shouting:

“We’re here to-day and away to-morrow. Now! Round and round she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows!”

“Anyway,” he grumbled low to himself, “I give ’em something when they do win. No clock that won’t run, nor painted plaster-of-paris doll for me. Real basket of groceries: oatmeal, peas, canned fish and a picnic ham.

“There you are, lady!” he shouted as the wheel stopped on the lucky 15. “Take this home for your Sunday dinner.” The crowd laughed and applauded as a short, stout Italian woman stumped away with her prize.

At that moment, from opposite directions, two youths pressed into the throng, each to deposit a dime on a favorite square. One was rather tall and broad shouldered; the other thin and of medium height. The one of athletic build was dressed as a college youth, and looked the part; latest stiff hat, bright tie, natty brown suit and spats he wore. The other seemed a freckle-faced country youth. He wore a soft slouch hat. His clothes fitted him badly. He even walked with that curious stride that suggests the lifting of feet from soft earth.

Johnny moved each dime to the center of its square and twirled the wheel. As he did so the college youth winked, and the freckled one, talking from the side of his mouth, said distinctly:

“They’re all here. Greasy Thumb and his gang. Saw ’em just now. Greasy is running a wheel. Rest are cappers. Wonder why.”

The next moment, without waiting to discover the results of the wheel’s turn, both college boy and country youth disappeared into the milling throng.

Johnny smiled, frowned, then gave himself over to the business of tending a spindle wheel at the “Greatest of all Carnivals.”

* * * * * * * *

The shouts and screams of the merry-makers had subsided to a murmur. The raucous grind of the merry-go-round organ was still. Lights were low. The night’s work was done. Behind closed tents the concession holders counted their nickels and dimes. Fat wives quarreled with slim husbands and grumbled about hard times that dwarfed their earnings. Slender girls of doubtful age combed their peroxide-blonde hair and flirted with boys in tight fitting suits. From this tent came a gurgle of laughter, from that a shout of derision. For, after all, the Carnival King and his crowd are as carefree a lot of ne’er-do-wells as one is likely to find in many a day’s travel. There is more truth than poetry in the expression so often at the tips of their tongues: “We’re here to-day and away to-morrow.”

“This is the life,” Johnny murmured, as he sauntered over the well-worn path that led from booth to booth. “And then again, I wonder if it is. I—”

He broke short off to stare ahead, for in spite of the lateness of the hour he saw just before him, crowded about a dimly lighted booth, an interested and excited group of men.

“You’re lucky,” said a short dark man with a scar above his eyes, patting a slim man in an ill-fitting suit on the back as Johnny arrived. “You paid only half a dollar. Now see! You may win ten. Put down your dollar quick before he stops the game!”

Johnny recognized the swarthy individual behind the spindle wheel. His wheel carried cheap baubles while the lights were on. Now only numbers remained.

“Playing for money. Breaking the law,” the boy thought. “Big stakes if he can get them. Wonder if he could be Greasy Thumb?” He crowded closer.

“Say, Mister!” pleaded the man with the scar over his eye. “Let me have his chance!”

The man in the ill-fitting suit squared his shoulders. “I’ll take it myself.” He peeled a sticky dollar bill off a meagre roll.

He played.

Johnny was disgusted. The man with the scar was a capper, one of the gang of crooked gamblers. He would lead this dupe on and on, and finally take all his money and leave him flat.

Johnny listened. They were at it again.

“Two calls for twenty-five. Oh, what luck! You’ll win!”

The man in the ill-fitting suit plunged again, and yet again. Twenty-five, fifty, a hundred dollars lay on the board. But always it was just beyond his reach. He must always pay more to win. His roll grew slimmer. At last only one bill remained, a fairly large one. He hesitated, then plunged for the last time.

“Oh! Ho! Too bad!” The voice of the man with the scar had gone flat. “You lost again!” The face of the dupe showed his consternation. He had lost a summer’s savings.

But now a fresh voice broke into the game. A broad-shouldered man with a stubby beard thrust his face close to that of the spindle wheel man.

“That’s a crooked game,” he growled. “I know this man. He’s a truck farmer. Got five kids. He can’t afford to lose. You’ve robbed him. But you can’t get away with it!”

He put out a hand for the money still on the table. But his grasp fell a foot short. With a grunt and a groan he went down. From beneath the table, by a well-practiced trick, the crook had kicked him in the stomach.

The affair seemed over. It was not. Johnny was to be reckoned with. He was fast as lightning and hard as nails. “Strike first, and take the second,” was his motto. The gambler’s foot was not yet on the ground when he received a blow from Johnny’s good right hand that sent him hurtling into the dark. At the same instant, as if by magic, the money on the board vanished and the kerosene flare that lighted the wheel went out.

The next instant Johnny felt some one tugging at his arm and heard a voice whisper hoarsely:

“Snap out of it, can’t you? Want to spill the works? C’mon, let’s get out of here!”

Recognizing the voice as one of authority, Johnny obeyed.

Ten minutes of ducking and dodging found him at last in his own tent.

“Can you beat that?” he exclaimed in a whisper as he switched on the light and looked down at his right hand. “Got that money, all of it. Now I’ll have to find that truck farmer and give it back. Gee! I hope I find him. And I hope his five kids are cute.”

He spread the bills out in a neat pile on his knee. Then he made them into a compact roll and thrust them deep into his pocket. But this was not the end of that affair. It was only the beginning.

He snapped off the light. “Can’t be too careful,” he told himself.

For a moment his head was in a whirl. Then of a sudden he leaned forward in the posture of one who listens intently. A faint sound had come to his ears.

“Footsteps,” he whispered. “Measured footsteps as of a sentry on duty. I wonder—”

Now a fresh sound greeted his ears.

The steady drum of a powerful airplane motor, growing louder and ever louder until it filled the very air, passed directly above his head and then thundered on into the distance.

Once it had passed he forgot the plane. He might well have given it much thought, for the driver of that plane and its precious freight were to enter much into his life. It was the night Air Mail from New York. And on this particular night it bore curious and priceless freight.

CHAPTER II
THE MYSTERIOUS SENTRY

As the drone of the motor died away in the distance, Johnny became conscious once more of the sentry-like tread from without.

“Who can that be?” His heart went into a tailspin. He was alone, unarmed. He thought of the gamblers, of Greasy Thumb and his gang, and of the money in his pocket, that roll of bills which belonged—well, to whom did it belong?

Regaining control of his nerves, he crept noiselessly to the front of the tent, then cautiously opened the flap a narrow crack.

The sight that met his eye caused him to start back. Barely did he escape making an audible exclamation of surprise and alarm. There, walking slowly back and forth before the tent, now in the shadows, now in a narrow spot of light, was as strange a figure as one might hope to see. Wrapped from head to ankle in a long gray coat—or was it a robe?—wearing gray shoes, gray gloves and with a gray slouch hat pulled down over his eyes, and with something that at least resembled a gray beard hiding the lower part of his face, this tall, slim man, if man it were, presented an awe-inspiring spectacle.

“The Gray Shadow!” Johnny whispered with a shudder. Twice before, each time in the heart of the city, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of this curious figure. Each time he had been in grave danger. With the passing of the Gray Shadow the danger, too, had passed.

“And now it is here,” he thought to himself. As he stared, the Gray Shadow disappeared into the depths of deeper, darker shadows and did not return. At the same moment Johnny thought he discerned figures retreating in the opposite direction.

“Queer doings!” he muttered to himself.

A moment later a low whistle sounded at the back of the tent. It was followed almost at once by sounds of stealthy movements. This time Johnny did not quail. He knew that whistle. Two minutes had not passed when two old friends, Drew Lane and Tom Howe, came creeping in on hands and knees. They had lifted the canvas at the back and entered unannounced.

“Did you see it?” Johnny whispered.

“See what?” Drew Lane demanded.

“See him?”

“Him or it? What are you talking about?”

“The Gray Shadow.”

“Again?” Drew Lane’s tone was filled with doubt. He had never seen the Gray Shadow. Being a detective, and a good one, he believed only in that which he had seen with his own eyes.

“Oh, I saw him right enough this time!” Johnny declared. “Walked across in front of my tent twice before he disappeared; exactly as if that were his business. Queerest sight you ever could look at. Didn’t seem human.”

“All right,” Drew Lane agreed, rather sharply. “You may have your shadows. We’ll deal with real crooks. That’s a detective’s business. Greasy Thumb and his gang are gone.”

“Gone!”

“Cleared out, far’s I can tell. Their booth and the tent back of it are entirely deserted. They’ll not be back, is my guess. Off on some big business. Pity is, we’ve missed their trail.”

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime, the lone pilot of the sky who had winged his way over Johnny’s booth an hour before was meeting with an unusual adventure. Had Johnny Thompson known who that pilot was he would have become excited beyond words, for this was none other than Curlie Carson. And Curlie Carson, as you will know, if you have read The Rope of Gold, had been Johnny’s companion in many wild adventures in that island of the Black Republic: Haiti. At the conclusion of those adventures they had parted. Now, with one of the queer tricks she appears to delight in, Fate had brought them within a very short distance of one another. And this time each was busy battling his way out from the tangle of mystery that was being woven about him.

After living in Haiti for a time, Curlie had found himself once more in the grip of wanderlust. Having returned to New York, he fell in with a friend who was in the Air Mail Service.

“Come with us,” his friend had invited. “Know the thrill of service in the clouds. Join a growing enterprise. Already Uncle Sam’s airplanes each day travel a distance equal to the airline that reaches from Chicago to Cape Town, Africa.”

Curlie had joined up gladly. A natural mechanic, and an aviator with several hundred miles to his credit, he was not long in gaining a place near the first rank of mail pilots.

When one of the regular Air Mail pilots flying from New York had been laid up by a case of nerves following a crackup, Curlie was given the stick. So here he was on his third long flight with fifteen hundred pounds of mail on board, his powerful plane drumming happily through the night.

Happily, but not for long. Scarcely had he passed over the bright lights that shone up from the “Greatest of all Carnivals,” than things began to happen.

The beginning seemed insignificant enough. His keen ears had detected a sound.

“What was that sound?” He had strained his ears in a vain endeavor to distinguish this new beat on his eardrums which had come to disturb him.

Not that there had been no sound before. There was plenty. For hours he had listened to the ceaseless roar of a six hundred horsepower airplane motor. True, this was muffled by a heavy radio head-set pressed lightly against his ears. But it was distinct enough for all that.

And now there had come a second sound. At first faint, indistinct. Then louder. Like bells, motors have their one definite sound and pitch. The experienced airman knows the sound of his own motor and many others.

“It’s a plane,” he told himself. “But at such a time, and such a place!”

Allowing one hand to rest gently on his control stick, he half rose in the cockpit to peer blindly into the void of darkness, of moonless night, that lay all about him.

For a full moment he remained standing thus, motionless, while his eyes swept in a circle, up, down and sideways, many times.

“No lights,” he murmured. “I take my oath to that. Dangerous business I’d say. Suppose they’d miss the sound of my motor, the gleam of my lights!” He shuddered at thought of a head-on collision, of broken wings, flaming planes and sudden death.

“Breaking the law, that’s what they are! Wish I had their number. I’d report them.”

Had he but known it, the occupants of this plane were infractors of the law in more ways than one. Not knowing, he settled back in his seat, gripped his stick firmly and gave his mind over to the important business of bringing the Air Mail from New York.

The drumming of the mysterious plane did not leave his ears undisturbed, nor did troubling thoughts pass from his mind.

“Up to something,” he told himself. He thought of one precious bit of cargo that lay so near him he might touch it with his feet.

“Forty thousand dollars,” he whispered. “Don’t seem that it could be worth that. But that’s what he said. And he’s always told the truth.”

“Snap on the radio,” he murmured after a moment. “May get some clue from that.” His plane was equipped with a receiving set by which weather reports and special orders reached him.

He was destined to receive a clue regarding the mystery plane, and that very soon. And such a clue! It would set his blood racing and his hands trembling.

But for the moment all was as it had been. Nothing came in over the air. His plane behaved beautifully. True, at times she bumped a bit as he speeded her up, but that was to be expected.

Half forgetting the other plane, he settled back in his seat to think of the hours that had just passed.

It had been George Wiseman, the mail clerk at the New York office, who had shown Curlie three unusual packages which went with hundreds of others to make up his fifteen hundred pounds of cargo.

Had Curlie been the usual type of air pilot he would have known nothing of those packages. He was far from the usual type. Instead of loafing about the hangar swapping stories with other pilots, he was uptown in New York, learning things.

His work and his mail interested him most. He was eager to know all about it from beginning to end.

George Wiseman had grown old in the mail service. He was tall, gray and stooped. His gray eyes were keen. He knew much and was willing to help the eager young pilot.

“You boys of the Air Mail know little enough about the service you perform,” he had said to Curlie as he busied himself with the tasks of making up the mail. “You see the mail in sacks. It’s packed away in the fusilage, and you go thundering away. At the other end it is dragged out, piled into a truck, and is away again.

“We at this end—” He reached for one of the registered mail pouches. “We know a little more, sometimes a great deal more. People confide in us. They tell us of their desires, their hopes, their fears.

“Take these three packages.” He jerked a thumb at a small, a medium sized and a rather large package. “To me they represent three things: a great necessity, an emergency and a mystery. To you—”

“Tell me about them!” Curlie had exclaimed quickly. “It will make the trip more interesting.”

“It will that!” exclaimed the aged mail clerk. “Even thrilling, you might say.

“That little one,” he went on, after ten seconds of silence, “is medicine, some sort of antitoxin, I think the man said. It’s for a very sick child, a beautiful little girl, five years old, a college professor’s daughter. She might die if you failed to go through.

“But there now!” he exclaimed. “Perhaps I’ve told you too much. It may bother you, make you unsteady.”

“It won’t,” said Curlie with assurance. “My mind doesn’t work that way. Been tried before. Added responsibility steadies me.”

“That’s the way to be. It’s the sign of a healthy mind in a healthy body. These boys that smoke a cigaret every four minutes, now. They’re not like that.”

“But tell me about that one.” Curlie pointed to the largest of the three packages.

“Worth forty thousand dollars.” The gray old clerk slid the package into the sack.

“Forty thous—”

“What the man said. Don’t doubt it. See who it’s for? Fritz Lieber. You know who that is.”

“The greatest living violinist.”

“Many say so. And this is his violin, one of them, perhaps his best.”

“But why here?” Curlie stared in astonishment.

“He has another. He likes the other as well; has it on tour. To-morrow in your city he is to play for fifteen hundred crippled children. That’s for the afternoon. At night he plays for the rich, the beautiful, the mighty, in the opera house. Thirty-five hundred of them. And his violin, his precious instrument, is out of commission. Don’t know why nor how. Somebody careless, probably.

“And this,” he added, placing a hand lightly on the package, “is his chance, the only other he can use.”

“His and the crippled children’s chance.” Curlie’s tone was almost reverent. “They shall have the chance. We’ll go through, my plane and I.”

Curlie recalled these words now as he ploughed on through the darkness and the night. Still there came to his ears the mysterious drumming of that other plane.

And then, suddenly, so loud that the speaker seemed at his very elbow, words broke in upon the thunder of the motor.

“The radio!” he whispered tensely.

“Official orders!” came in a gruff voice. “Land at once.”

“Land at once! in this darkness!” the boy thought in dismay. He was over a level farm country. The thing was possible. But why?

Emergencies, the child’s medicine, the violin, all called for full speed ahead.

“Land!” he cried aloud to the waiting night. “Land!”

There was no reply vouchsafed him. His machine carried no sending set.

“Land!” he muttered suddenly. “It’s a plot!”

He touched a lever. His motor thundered louder than ever and his thoughts raced with the plane.

“That,” he told himself a moment later, “was a mistake. It told them at once that I accept their challenge.”

But what did they want? Again his thoughts flew to the sack of registered mail in the fusilage just before him.

“Three precious packages,” he thought. “Can’t be the medicine. Who would rob a dying child?

“The violin! Forty thousand dollars! that’s it. They would rob the mail to get that.”

And yet, as he gave the matter a second thought, the thing seemed uncertain. There was no doubting the true value of the violin. But where would a robber sell it? Such instruments are few; they are known the world over. To offer a stolen one for sale would be to court arrest.

“There’s the third package,” he told himself. “Mr. Wiseman said this one contained a mystery. ‘A strange, wild-eyed man in shabby attire brought it to the office. He placed a twenty dollar gold piece on the counter, paid the highest possible insurance fee upon the package, which is heavily sealed with wax, and then without a word he walked away.’ Those were Mr. Wiseman’s very words.”

But now the time for reflection was past. The time for action had come. The voice was once more in his ear. Gruffer than before, it set aside all pretense.

“You’ll come down, or we’ll bring you down like a crippled wild goose!”

Curlie shuddered. What was this, a plain robbery, or did that mysterious package contain some terrible secret?

He was alone in the dark. The hour neared midnight. He was high in the air. What could he do?

“The mail bag is within my reach. I could swing out with it and jump. Parachute would save the treasure and me,” he thought.

But would it? The parachute was large and white. Even in the night it might be seen.

“Then they’d land and catch me. I’d crash my plane for nothing, and all that mail would probably be burned.”

Crash the plane! No. He couldn’t do that. That old plane meant much to him. In it he had outridden many a wild storm.

Then, too, there was the Air Mail pilots’ slogan: “The mail must go through.”

“And it shall!” he shouted into the night.

“You’ll come down!” the voice from the air insisted.

In his desperation the boy lifted his eyes to the skies in silent prayer.

Did the answer come at once? Be that as it may, a thought flashed into his mind.

In the fusilage directly behind him was a twelve foot parachute. Fastened to the parachute was, of all things, a large doll and a new doll buggy.

On the route, a few miles beyond a small city, was a farm. Curlie had made a forced landing there the trip before this one. There he had made the acquaintance of a child, a happy, most cheerful little girl, and yet a terrible cripple.

Curlie read his Bible. He believed what he read. Some day, if he fed the poor, visited the sick and was kind to crippled children, he would hear the great Master say, “Come!”

He had written a letter to the crippled child, had received an answer and had learned that she wanted a doll and a doll carriage. This day he had meant to send the gifts down by a red parachute. The clouds had hid the little farm. The parachute was still behind him.

“If I remove the doll and attach the registered sack to the parachute I can toss it over and they won’t see it. Red shows black at night. They’d never find it. Then I can land and take what comes.”

“You have two minutes to land!” The voice was more threatening than ever.

Two minutes! The hum of the other motor grew louder. The radio was not on that plane, but on some building not so far away.

Two minutes! He worked feverishly. The cord stuck. He cut it, then tied it again. He dragged out the bag. He lifted the parachute free.

“The violin!” His heart sank. Yet the parachute would lower the sack gently to the ground.

“It’s the only chance.” With one wide, clear swing, he tossed the sack over.

The next instant his plane tilted downward. Not a moment too soon, for a motor thundering by passed again into the darkness.

“Meant to shoot me down,” he muttered breathlessly.

He reached for a switch, pulled it, and at once saw a finger of light from his powerful landing lamp pointing earthward.

For a space of ten seconds he studied the surface of the ground.

“Level pasture. Take a chance. Land in the dark. Might escape.”

Again there was darkness. And now, too, came silence. He had shut off his motor.

“They’re landing, too,” he thought with a thrill and a shudder. “I wonder where?”

CHAPTER III
A COLD SCENT

“Yep, they’re gone all right. Cleared out.” Drew Lane spoke in tones scarcely above a whisper. “Of course they may be just outside, for all we know.” His hand involuntarily strayed to his hip.

Johnny Thompson, Drew Lane and Tom Howe were still in Johnny’s tent. The adventures that were befalling Curlie Carson, for the moment, meant nothing to them. They were beyond earshot of it all. All unconscious of it, they were discussing their own affairs.

“I don’t think so.” Tom Howe, who seldom spoke, but whose actions spoke for him, broke the silence. “It’s my notion they have gone out for the big thing, whatever that is.”

“The big thing?” Johnny leaned forward eagerly.

“Sure,” Drew Lane broke in. “You don’t think such fellows as Greasy Thumb and his mob would come out here to run a tin horn gambler’s game, do you? Say! They’re supposed to be right next to the Big Shot.”

The Big Shot! Johnny was impressed. Who had not heard of the Big Shot, the man who headed the greatest beer running, gambling house operating gang of robbers the land has ever known?

“Yes,” said Tom Howe. “They’re after something big. But what it could be in a quiet little city like this is more than I can guess.”

Perhaps you have wondered how it came about that Drew Lane and Tom Howe, the successful young detectives of a great city’s force, were to be found in a small carnival city fifty miles from the bright lights of the greatest boulevard.

The truth is, a city’s detective force does not confine its activities to the city’s limits. The crooks that make a city their home belong to that city. If they choose to leave it for a time, certain of the city’s hounds of justice are likely to camp on their trails.

Summer is the time for the migration of evil doers. They thrive on crowds. In a crowd a purse may be snatched, a hold-up perpetrated, even murder done, and the criminal may at once lose himself in that crowd.

In winter crowds are found only in cities. Summer sees country parks, carnivals and fairgrounds thronged with people. The crooks prey upon these crowds just as the pike does on a school of perch.

Some city police officers are content to spend their lives patrolling a beat. They have their place and contribute their bit to the city’s happiness and safety. Others ride about in squad cars listening for trouble. Still others, like Drew Lane and Tom Howe, restless souls, are by nature free lances. They know hundreds of evil doers by sight and are ever clinging doggedly to their heels.

It was even so now. Having become aware of the exit of a dangerous gang of professional criminals from the city, they had followed. And here they were.

If you have read that other book, The Arrow of Fire, I need not tell you that Drew Lane, not many months out of college, impersonated a natty college youth, and Tom Howe, slight, stooped, and freckled, had prepared himself to play the role of a country boy come to the “Greatest of All Carnivals.”

And now here they were gathered in Johnny’s tent, for a time completely off the trail of Greasy Thumb and his gang, awaiting the break of “something big.”

Even as they waited, not ten miles away Johnny’s old pal, Curlie Carson, was preparing to land his plane in an unknown field at night, forced down by a voice in the air, and with the mail sack containing three precious packages sinking to earth somewhere in the void of darkness behind him.

CHAPTER IV
A MOMENTOUS DECISION

In choosing to land in the dark on an unknown field, Curlie Carson realized that he was taking a terrible chance. Night landings are always a problem. The appearance of the ground is deceiving. A narrow run, deep and dangerous, may be hidden by its banks; a sudden swell may bring disaster.

“It may be a life lost. But there are times when one must take chances,” he told himself stoutly. He was thinking of the medicine in that sack back there somewhere in the dark.

“Are those villains doing all this for gain, or what?” He thought now of those mysterious ones who were hounding him. “They can’t know how terrible it all is. I—”

There came a sudden bump; another; another; many bumps in quick succession. He was landing. Setting his brakes hard, he unsnapped his harness and prepared to leap.

With a suddenness that was startling, the plane came to a stop. It appeared to strain forward; then it recoiled.

“Hit a fence,” he breathed. “Good thing it wasn’t sooner.”

He was over the side and away. Plunging forward, he paused to grope for the fence. Having found it, he went skulking along it from post to post.

His reasons for this were two. If a light shot in his direction the fence would offer some chance of concealment. He could become a stone in the fence row. Then, too, the fence gave him direction. He had been flying due west. This fence ran north and south. It would be crossed by another. When he found this he would turn east. About a mile and a half back was the precious mail sack.

“I’ll find it,” he assured himself. “It’s not too late yet. Only sixty miles more to go. Some one will take me to a station or an airdrome. Please God, the medicine will reach its destination.

“And the violin,” he added. “Fifteen hundred crippled children!”

He paused to listen. Some one was shouting. They had found his plane, discovered that he was gone.

“What will they do now?” He raced on.

He was to know soon enough. From somewhere in that expanse of pasture a pencil of light began circling.

“It’s a searchlight from their plane. I’m lost, perhaps.

“But no. Perhaps not.”

With one eye on the light, he moved slowly forward. When at last it sought his fence row and followed it, there was nothing moving there. The light did not pause as it passed across a log or a stone in the fence row. It moved to its limit in that direction and then began searching other corners.

“They won’t suspect that the bag is back yonder,” he told himself. “Think I have it.”

For a time, ready at any moment to play ’possum, he crept forward. Coming to an intersection of fences, he turned east.

At last he sprang to his feet and ran again.

Quite out of breath, and beyond the range of the light, he slowed down.

“A mile and a half,” he whispered. “Covered half of it already. Have to use my flashlight to find the bag. More danger. They may see it. Oh, well, my legs are as good as theirs. But guns!” He shuddered.

Fifteen minutes of brisk walking and he judged himself to be near the place where the parachute had dropped.

Turning his back to the fence he prepared to walk straight forward for some distance. He had not taken a dozen steps when his foot caught on something and he barely escaped a fall.

Putting out a hand, he let forth an involuntary exclamation. He had tripped on the red parachute.

“Great luck!” he exclaimed.

The next moment found the precious bag and the parachute (which he vowed should still bring a doll to his little friend) tucked under his arm.

“Now,” he thought, “what next?”

He paused to reflect. This was a pasture. Every pasture, if it does not touch the farm yard on one corner, has a lane leading to the farm buildings. If he continued to follow the fence he might come to the farmer’s house. So he reasoned.

And he was right. Fifteen minutes had not passed before the farmer, aroused by the loud barking of his dog, was standing in his door, demanding:

“Who’s there?”

“An Air Mail flyer,” Curlie replied, in as even a tone as he could command. “Plane’s down in your pasture. I need your help. The mail must go through.”

“Down, there!” the man growled at his dog. “What do you want,” he asked Curlie.

“Have you a car?” Curlie asked, stepping to the door.

“Yes, a truck.”

“How far is it to town?”

“To Aurora, eight miles.”

“Aurora!” Curlie’s hopes rose. At Aurora there was an airport. If this farmer but knew the way to the airport, the precious parcel of mail would not be long delayed.

He felt for the sack. The three packages, undamaged by the fall, were still there.

“Take me to Aurora at once,” he said in a tone that carried authority. “You will be well paid. But besides this, it is your duty. Every man, in time of emergency, is the servant of his country.”

“Yes, that is true,” the man agreed, as he drew on his coat. “We’ll get the car; then we’ll go for the mail.”

“I have it here.”

“So little!” The man stared with unbelieving eyes.

“There is much more. This is all that matters now. This is urgent. It’s a registered sack. Perhaps a matter of life and death.”

Even as Curlie spoke he caught the sound of voices. They came from the direction of the plane. His pursuers were approaching the farmhouse, having discovered that the registered mail was gone. Would he yet be caught?

“Come!” he exclaimed. “We must go!”

The farmer, too, had heard the shouts. He appeared bewildered, undecided.

Without wasting another word, the boy whipped out his flashlight, set it circling the barnyard, then dashed to a shed where the truck was kept. The next instant the motor was purring.

Before the farmer had collected his wits sufficiently to move, Curlie had driven the truck into the center of the yard.

“Perhaps he thinks I am a mail robber, those others the pilots,” he told himself. “What can a farmer know about such things? If worse comes to worst, I’ll drive away alone and take the consequences.”

This proved unnecessary. Awakened from his sleep to find himself confronted by an emergency, the slow-going, methodical farmer had found his mind unequal to the situation. When his own truck came rumbling up to his doorstep he climbed in; then, at the boy airman’s request, he pointed the way to the small city nearest his home.

For a time at least after that, fortune favored Curlie. The road to town, he found, led by the airport. Half an hour had not elapsed before the shuddering farm truck drew up at the airport’s entrance.

Hastily handing the farmer a banknote, he began pounding at the door of a room where a dim light shone.

“What you want?” grumbled a voice, as the door opened.

“A plane to Chicago. Special Air Mail. An emergency. Plane down in a pasture five miles back.”

The man glanced at the mail sack, at Curlie’s uniform, then said cheerily:

“Righto! Warm one up at once. Good bus. Want the stick?”

“You better come. Take her back. I can’t.”

“Right!”

A moment later a powerful motor began a low rumble. The rumble increased to a roar, then died down again. Three times this was repeated. Then Curlie climbed aboard a two-seater.

“Time for three winks,” he thought, as he strapped himself in.

Long hours had passed since he had left his last airport. Excitement and mental struggle had tired him. Accustomed as he was to being aloft, he fell asleep at once and remained so until the bump-bump of his plane, landing on the city field, awoke him.

“We’re there!” he thought to himself. “The city at last!”

But his task was only begun. Ordinarily he would have delivered his mail to a truck driver. The driver would carry it to the post office and his responsibility would end. But to-night he was late. An emergency existed. Knowing the great need, he was obliged to decide whether or not to take matters in his own hands. Should he rip open the locked sack and deliver the three parcels in person?

In such a course he realized there would be a grave element of risk. Tampering with the mail is serious business. Should one package escape from his hands before it was delivered, he would be held responsible. The loss of one precious package would mean a loss to his company. The company alone was responsible for the mail until it was received by the postal authorities.

“A slip would mean loss of position—disgrace,” he told himself.

He looked at his watch. It was well past midnight. “The last post office messenger boy leaves at 11 o’clock,” he told himself. “Had the emergency existed in the beginning I might have phoned in and had a mail clerk stay until I arrived. Now there is only one chance. I must take matters in my own hands or wait for the office to open in the morning. And that may be too late.” For a moment he hesitated.

He was tired. The way had been long. His comfortable bed awaited him. It would be so easy to report the whole affair, send planes and pilots for his abandoned mail plane, and then turn over the special sack to the office and go home.

“A fellow isn’t responsible for that which he is not supposed to know,” he told himself stoutly. “Mr. Wiseman had no real right to tell me about those packages. I—”

But now rose the picture of a child tossing in pain, of a father pacing the floor waiting for medicine that did not come. Then a second picture came to haunt him: hundreds of eager-eyed crippled children waiting in vain for the celestial notes of a marvelous violin played by a master’s hands.

“The law of the need of those who suffer is higher than any other law,” he told himself stoutly. “I will take the risk. I will deliver them in person.”

Five minutes later, after having reported the astonishing affair to the night director of the airport, he plunged into the darkness that is a great city’s outer borders at night, with the precious sack still under his arm. Written on the tablets of his mind was the address of the home where the sick girl lay.

Boarding a street car, he rode eight blocks. Having overhauled a night prowling taxi, he leaped into it from the car and went speeding away into the night.

As he settled back for an eight mile ride, there crept into his mind again grave misgivings. The sack at his side had been cut open by his own hand, and this the most precious, the most carefully guarded of all mail. Not one package might pass from one hand to another without an official signature and a stamp.

“And I dared break all rules!” he told himself, as his heart stood still. “One slip now, and I am done!”

“Done! Out of the mail service forever. Out!”

How he loved his work! Climbing into the clouds in the dewy morning; racing the stars at night; the air; the sky; all the freedom of a bird. How could he stand losing all this?

And yet, even from these he passed to more disturbing thoughts. Was that gang still after him? Where were they now?

“They, too, may be in the city by now,” he told himself. “What if they overhaul me before my task is done?” He shuddered.

“They must not!”

“Driver!” He leaned forward. “Driver, all the speed you dare. And an extra fee for your trouble.”

With a fresh burst of power the taxi sped on through the night.

CHAPTER V
MARKED MONEY

There was little sleeping that night in Johnny Thompson’s tent at the back of his booth, at the “Greatest of all Carnivals.” True, Johnny remained in the tent to doze off at times. Drew Lane and his partner spent their time in scouting about searching for clues that might lead them to the whereabouts of Greasy Thumb and his gang.

Once, while Johnny was alone, he drew the roll of bills from his pocket.

“What am I to do with these?” he asked himself. “Give them to that truck farmer? Simple enough. But where is he? Where does he live?”

He examined the bills closely, then let out a low whistle. Two of them were marked with a faint red cross in the corner.

“Marked money!” he exclaimed in a low tone. “Bad business! Dangerous! Like to throw them away.”

Yet, because this roll represented a fairly large sum of money, he did not obey that impulse. Instead, he thrust them once more into his pocket.

Half an hour later, having returned from one more fruitless search, Drew and Tom were about to join Johnny in a steaming cup of coffee when, without ceremony, a curious individual crept into the tent.

At sight of him Johnny started back. A very small man, with a long sharp nose and piercing yellow eyes, he might have been said to crawl rather than walk.

“It’s all right,” Drew assured Johnny. “Meet the Ferret. He is one of us. Very much so.”

“Hello, Ferret,” he greeted the newcomer. “What’s up?”

The man did not reply at once. Instead, he put out a hand for a cup of the scalding coffee, placed it to his lips and drained it without a pause.

“Hot stuff!” muttered Johnny.

“Very hot!” agreed Drew.

The dog has been named man’s best friend. Yet as a hunter he has his handicaps. True, he is a swift runner and can make a great noise. Often by sheer bluff he drives the coyote from the hen roost. Then, too, he can dig. At times he drags a rat from his den and destroys him.

The cat has his good points also. He is sly, patient. For hours he waits beside some enemy’s trail until the great moment comes. Then one swift spring, a cry of surprise and pain, and all is over.

Yet dog and cat alike are powerless before the sly, deep-digging weasel, the mink and the skunk. Only one crafty, half tamed pet of mankind can cope with these. The ferret with his slim, snake-like body, his beady eyes, his prying nose, glides noiselessly into the deepest burrows and sends its denizens rushing from their dark haunts into sunshine and death.

So, too, in the ranks of mankind the ferret is to be found. Lacking in physical strength and prowess, yet endowed with a faculty for discovering hidden dens, the human ferret is ever closely associated with the police. He wears neither badge nor uniform. His name is not on the pay roll. Despised by some, he is feared by many. For it is he who many times brings the evil doer to justice.

The strange person who crept into Johnny’s tent was of this sort. Indeed, so definitely had his vocation been chosen for him by nature that he was known only as “The Ferret.” If he had any other name it had been forgotten.

“The Ferret” had one great redeeming quality. He was a sincere friend of justice. He furnished information only to those who made an honest attempt to enforce the law. He was possessed of an uncanny power. He appeared to read men’s minds. Was an officer a traitor to the cause he had sworn to serve? “The Ferret” knew it on the instant. No information was forthcoming to such a one. Indeed, if he did not watch his step he was likely to feel “The Ferret’s” bite.

The source of his income was not known. Some rumors had it that a rich philanthropist, realizing his value to the community, had endowed him for life. Another was that he was rich in his own name, that he owned a flat building, stocks, bonds and mortgages, and that his occupation was but a hobby. Strange hobby, you will say; yet there have been stranger, and far less useful.

Because they were honest, sincere and fearless, Drew and Howe were ever in “The Ferret’s” favor.

Drew Lane’s eyes were alight as they fell upon the insignificant form of “The Ferret.”

“What’s up?” he demanded once more.

“Mailplane brought down and robbed ten miles from here.” “The Ferret’s” voice was low and soft.

How could “The Ferret” know this so quickly? Who can say? The source of his information must have been of an obscure nature. For when Drew pressed him for details he could furnish none. Nor could he tell whether Greasy Thumb had a hand in it.

“But what’s so valuable in the Air Mail?” Johnny asked. “I thought that was for the most part personal messages, important to the sender, but worthless to others.”

“For the most part, yes,” Drew agreed. “But think of the emergencies the Air Mail is prepared to meet. A big deal in stocks is on. The actual securities must be delivered within twenty-four hours. The Air Mail brings them. Mrs. Jones-Smith-Walker, the millionaire widow, arrives in Chicago only to find that a great reception has been planned for her at the country home of her bosom friends, Mrs. Burns-Walker. Her jewels, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth or more, are in New York. Without them she will not be properly dressed. The Air Mail brings them. And who knows but that, through some secret channels the powerful, sometimes rich, sometimes poor, gang that is forever preying upon the foolish rich society folks are tipped off in advance regarding the consignment. Worth going after. What? If you don’t care for the law and have little fear of prison.

“Mind,” he added, “I don’t say this is the case. I have no information which would even lead me to suspect such a thing.

“Only one fact stands out clearly!” he exclaimed, springing into action. “The trail leads to the city. Big affairs may be pulled off by crooks in the country at times. But they always speed away to the city afterward. For it is there that they may most effectually lose themselves.