The Golden Quest

CHAPTER XV. TRAPPED BELOW

STARLIGHT showed Lake Chalice, black within its wooded shores. Obscuring clouds dulled the twinkling illumination, masses of trees were darker where slopes hid the vales beyond them.

Thick gloom had prevailed at the entrance to the mine shaft where Harry Vincent and his companions had entered. That was due partly to the hillside, partly to the trees. But there were spots near Lake Chalice that were less blackened.

One, for instance, was a projecting crag that issued from the very slope where The Shadow had discovered the mine entrance. Gray rock showed amid trees. Upon that jutting point stood a figure, so motionless that it could easily have been mistaken for a patch of darkened foliage.

The Shadow had chosen this lookout. He had watched the glimmer of the electric lantern, which had told him that three men were on their way to reclaim the old Quest mine.

Still within range of the opened shaft, The Shadow had gained a second vantage at his new post. He could command a view of Lake Chalice.

A clear night would have served The Shadow better. Then, he could have viewed the twisted lake as a complete panorama, picking out any movement upon its placid surface. The clouded starlight, however, made observation difficult. The Shadow could barely discern the spots where shore changed to water.

Old Absalom’s isle, abode of Vic Marquette, was almost invisible. The point across the lake was also hard to see; tiny specks of light alone indicated the location of Cortland Laspar’s lodge.

Off along the lake shore was a slight touch of light. The light indicated the cabins by the entrance to the Chalice mine, where Luke Trebold and his men were still guarding the doors of the closed caverns.

The night was amazingly still. The distant cry of a loon came in faint trill from far across the lake. The bird’s call dwindled. Stillness returned. Then, from the hush, The Shadow caught other sounds: the splash of an oar; the creak of oarlocks.

The sounds faded; but not because of distance. These tokens of voyagers upon Lake Chalice were muffled by trees close to the shore. Calculating, The Shadow decided that the boats must be between Old Absalom’s isle and the landing place where Harry and Rex had placed the motorboat.

The Shadow waited. A weird watcher from the crag, he followed the course that he could not see, estimating how the boats were moving, looking for some sign of the men who manned them. At last came blinks of light, down by the gully where the motorboat was moored.

Lights moved inshore. Men had landed. Blinks, vanishing and reappearing, came as tokens of their progress. The landing crew was heading along the old path, aiming for the deserted shack wherein Rex Brodford and Harry Vincent had battled with Vic Marquette.

A LAUGH came from The Shadow. It was a guarded burst of whispered mockery that faded through the trees that fringed the crag. The Shadow had anticipated this move. That was why he had remained on guard. He had taken account of a possibility that Vic Marquette had rejected.

Jubal and Firth had paid a new visit to the hermit’s isle. Evidently they had decided to be about, to aid Old Absalom should he encounter trouble with Rex and Harry. The Shadow had doubted that those rogues would leave all to the hermit.

They wanted Old Absalom to take the rap. They had not guessed that the hermit was Vic Marquette in disguise. But they wanted to be there, to take their toll if their killer failed. They had nothing to lose, for if Old Absalom should kill his visitors, they could depart before the law learned of the slaying.

But Jubal and his followers’ arrived at the isle had found the hermit missing. They had drawn the logical conclusion: that Old Absalom had pulled a double cross. They had decided that he had gone up to the shack to parley. They were coming along to put an end to the double game.

Lights were farther up the slope. The Shadow was some distance from the path that the attackers were following. It was time for him to move. Gliding from the pinnacle, The Shadow retraced his steps through the trees. He moved silently to a point where he could follow the arriving men.

Lights were blinking cautiously. Jubal’s gang was coming to the shack. Silently, The Shadow followed.

He saw lights go out; he listened while men crept forward to surround the shack.

Then came a burst of illumination. Figures sprang into the little wooden building. Then came oaths and growls of disgust. The surprise attack had failed, for the simple reason that the shack was empty.

Enshrouded in darkness, The Shadow had every opportunity to open fire upon his foemen. But he had reasons for preferring to leave them alone. Though he had suspected that the band might move tonight, The Shadow had hoped that they would remain latent for the present.

The discovery of the empty shack might produce the result The Shadow wanted. There was a chance that Jubal would decide that Rex and Harry had gone back to the lodge, even though the motorboat was still moored by the gully.

Unless they had found Old Absalom’s skiff, Jubal and his crew might think that the hermit was out somewhere on the lake. The Shadow felt sure that Vic Marquette would have been smart enough to put his boat in a secluded spot.

Tonight was important to The Shadow. Events had moved as he had wanted them, in steady, regular progression. Harry Vincent had faked a lucky break that had brought the opening of the Quest mine. Vic Marquette had joined forces with Harry and Rex Brodford.

This was opening the way to the type of climax that The Shadow wanted. He knew that the discovery of ore in the mine would hold the searchers and bring them back to the shack. If Jubal and these rogues of his decided to depart, The Shadow’s plans would resume.

MEN formed a group about the shack. The Shadow could hear the mumble of conversation. For a short while, the crew seemed on the point of returning down to the lake. Then came a growled command; lights began to bob and spread about.

Jubal had ordered a search of this terrain. Perhaps he suspected that Harry and Rex might still be about.

Men were deploying for a short hunt. The Shadow saw that danger was imminent. Perhaps they would fail to find the entrance to the Quest mine. If they failed, The Shadow could afford to let them go for the present. But it they succeeded, three men below would be in danger. The Shadow took measures to prevent such a pass.

Stalking through the darkness, the cloaked guardian took the shortest course toward the mine shaft.

Avoiding loose rocks, The Shadow reached the birch tree, picking it out as a rod of white in blackness.

There he waited, close to the mouth of the uncovered shaft, counting upon the possibility that blunderers might pass by the dug-up earth that marked the opening.

For a while, all was to The Shadow’s liking. Flicks of light did not come close to the birch tree. Searchers were all about, but none were within fifty yards of the vital point. Then, just as growled orders were coming to draw off the crew, one searcher made the discovery.

The swinging gleam of a flashlight came straight for the opened shaft. A man shouted; others came clambering through the brush as they heard his call. Jubal’s crew of murder-makers were on their way to the uncovered shaft.

The first man stumbled up to the pit. A snarl of elation came from his evil lips. He flashed his light toward the opening; then up beyond it. He stopped as a sharp hiss reached his ears. The ruffian blurted a gasp.

Rising from just beyond the shaft was a shrouded form that reared ghostlike in the flashlight’s glow.

Cloaked shoulders obscured a living form. Burning eyes glared from beneath the brim of a slouch hat.

“The Shadow!”

THE discoverer gulped the cry of recognition. His words told The Shadow the fellow’s ilk. This man must be a mobster, imported by Jubal from New York. A local outlaw would not have made so prompt a statement of identification.

The cry, moreover, told The Shadow how the man would act. He had sought to suppress this fellow who had blundered upon the mine shaft. There was no chance to do that now.

Looming forward, The Shadow dropped into the edge of the pit. An automatic swung up in his right fist.

The move came as the mobster fired. Viciously, the thug stabbed flame into the night, hoping to down the archenemy of crime. Hard on the first wild shots came The Shadow’s answer. The automatic tongued its flash.

The mobster went sprawling on the rocks. His flashlight dropped uselessly to the ground. In place of it came the glare of half a dozen other torches. The crew, clambering close, was ready to take up the cause of the man whom The Shadow had dropped.

Jubal’s voice roared hoarse with its command. With it came a fierce growl that The Shadow recognized: that of Chuck Haggart, the mobleader who had escaped after the battle behind the Club Renaldo.

Chuck was the leader of the imported crew. Jubal had brought him out to Michigan to escape the dragnet. With him, Chuck had carried along an outfit of gorillas. Once again, The Shadow was faced by vicious marksmen.

Yet The Shadow’s laugh rose strident, before guns could bark. Weird, defiant mockery was loosed from the pit upon the hillside. His course no longer one of watching, The Shadow was delivering a pent-up challenge that brought fear to the hard men who heard it.

The Shadow was fighting from a stronghold. Resting upon the rough edge of the pit, he was weaving his head and shoulders in the light. Harry and Rex, by their excavation, had provided him with a perfect fortress.

Deep in the improvised pill-box, The Shadow opened stinging fire. Twisting, he aimed for lights. Plucking targets from about him, he sent mobsters sprawling to the turf. Revolvers spoke as would-be killers pointed for that weaving silhouette. But the odds were all against the maddened gorillas.

The Shadow’s head dipped with uncanny fashion. It dropped behind projecting lumps of rock. His automatics thundered from crevices that served as loopholes. Revolver bullets dug up turf; they ricocheted from jagged stones, but those slugs failed to find the defender.

Men with flashlights sprawled. The Shadow picked them as his first targets. A few were quick enough to blink out their torches. From then on, all were firing in darkness — the mobsters at the flashes of The Shadow’s guns; The Shadow at the spurts from mobster revolvers.

ODDS were with The Shadow. His muzzles pointed from jagged edges of rock. When they moved, they merely withdrew, to find some new loophole that he could use in the darkness. The guns of mobsters, however, told The Shadow where their bearers were.

The Shadow’s slugs were crippling. The attackers found no luck. Dropping away from the withering fire, they dropped for cover, firing spasmodically, at total disadvantage.

A lull. Mobsters arose to start new shots. A quick volley came from the blackness where The Shadow lay. The master fighter had paused to reload. Mobsters ducked and stopped their fire.

Another lull. Then came a voice, snarling through the darkness from some sheltered spot. It was Jubal, calling a command to Firth.

“Give me a light!” cried Jubal. “I’ll fix him! Like we were going to fix them in the shack—”

“He’ll pick me off!” came Firth’s wheezy plea. “He’s watching—”

“I’ll give you a light!” came Chuck Haggart’s rasped interruption. “Get ready. Here goes!”

A powerful electric torch released its glow. A burning bull’s-eye for The Shadow, had he chosen to fire.

Chuck had wedged the torch in the crotch of a small tree, ducking as he pressed the switch.

But The Shadow did not fire. He wanted Jubal for his victim. He was searching, from beside a rock edge, to spot the first man who had called. Jubal was beyond the range of Chuck’s torch. The Shadow did not find him on the instant. His keen ears caught a swish in the darkness. His eyes spied an object coming through the air.

Too late to stop the unexpected missile, The Shadow pressed the triggers of both automatics. One shot shattered Chuck Haggart’s torch. The other whizzed close to the spot where Jubal lay. Rising as he fired, The Shadow took the recoil.

As the torch went out, Jubal and his men saw the cloaked form dropping backward. In one split-second, The Shadow had launched himself down into the pit. It was his only way to escape that rounded object that Jubal had hurled high into the air.

One second later the missile struck. It hit just beyond the pit, driving against crushed stones that lay imbedded in the upper turf. The aim, however, was good enough.

A terrific explosion shook the embankment just above the shaft. Flame flashed up; rocks split and timbers crackled. Huge stones rolled down upon the hole into which The Shadow had plunged. Masses of earth, chunks of wood were added to the avalanche.

The Shadow had caught the significance of Jubal’s words. The crook had brought a spherical bomb for emergency. He had intended, if occasion called, to toss the “pineapple” into the shack occupied by Rex Brodford and Harry Vincent. He had used it, instead, to counteract The Shadow’s bulwark at the opening of the mine shaft.

The blast had riddled the slope beyond the pit. Rocks were still crashing — some bouncing into the opening; others clattering down the hillside. Trees had wavered, then fallen about the shaft. The marking birch tree had toppled.

Lights were flashing now as Jubal and his men came clambering up to the spot of chaos. Their torches showed the devastation that the pineapple had wreaked. Large stones had clogged the opening. Earth was sifting through in chunks.

Willingly, mobsmen seized stones and threw them down to fill the spaces in the blocked entrance. The Shadow was entombed, perhaps dead, but they were taking no chances. Their job was to block the space so completely that their foe could never wedge his way out.

As they worked, crooks croaked their triumph. Jubal had turned the tide. The Shadow’s battle was ended. They had balked their superfoe. The uncovered outlet had again been filled.

The Shadow was buried below!