Detective Bob Bridger — page 239: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

932 DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. next moment the noise of loosing bolts and bars sounded from beneath. The narrow door in the rear wall opened, and Goucher, followed by ‘‘Jack, the Fork,” entered the trap’s bottom. ‘‘He’s as dead asa herrin’,” said Goucher, ‘‘and when we get him safe abed with the shovel, I’ll be feelin’ safer.” As the two burglars advanced toward the “dummy,” it was only a question in Bridger’s mind which he would kill first. The sleuth-hound was by no means a blood-thirsty man; but the heart of the mountain catamount never leaped higher in glad expectation as he made ready to spring from the high bough upon the unsuspecting prey, than did Bridger’s as he leveled the tubes of his good pistols on that pair of scoundrels. He knew that his bullets would go just where he wanted them to go, and the chances were terribly in favor of the two men receiving their death summons then and there. As Goucher spoke, “ Jack, the Fork’s” eye perceived the watch lying near the ‘‘dummy,” and he sprang forward to grasp it. This move elected Goucher the nearest man to the narrow door, and Bridger drew a ‘‘dead bead” on him. Just as the sleuth-hound laid his finger on the trigger, and was on the point of sending the ball through the bur- glar’s brain, the sound of hurrying footsteps came from overhead. On the instant a voice, which sounded from beneath in the trap, said : “Lay low, for Heaven’s sake! It’s a pull!” Goucher and ‘‘Jack, the Fork,” started back, trembling in terror, and then advanced hastily toward the farther end of the trap. ‘‘Great Heaven!” muttered Goucher, “can it be they’ve dropped on us?” ‘‘ Jack, the Fork,” was too much alarmed to make answer, and the two thieves stood glaring at a speaking-tube which Bridger perceived ran down the wall from above, and through which the warning had been spoken. | “You can bet your life, Goucher, you’re dropped on!” said Bridger, for the two men were now a safe distance from the door, and the sleuth-hound had determined if possible to hold them at bav until he had learned the out- come of the announced “‘pull.”’ Turning about, in a dazed manner, the two burglars be- held Bridger perched above them, in the corner of the wall. comichooks.com