Diamond Dick, Jr.: The Boys' Best Weekly — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

DIAMOND DIcK, JR. OUT OF SIGHT. 9 Two men were seen pursuing her and were close upon her, and the woman gave voice to another scream as she redoubled her efforts to reach the water before they could overtake her. Diamond Dick, Jr., resolved to chip in here. He felt for his guns, They were in place and ready for busi- ess. He tried the window, raising ~it as noiselessly as possible, and it made no sound. The window was over a porch roof, and he was out upon that in no time, and it took him but a moment to slide down one of the posts to the ground. By this time the men had overtaken the woman, at the very edge of the lake, and were dragging her away in the direc- tion of the boathouse, one of them hold- ing a hand over her mouth. Bertie did not care to cross the lawn in the open moonlight. If the woman’s cry had awakened others, he would be sure to be seen in so doing. | So he ran in the shadow of the house to the east end, and there a long arbor favored him until he could reach a fence farther away. Running through the arbor, he leaped the fence at the end and ran along be- hind it, thus concealed from the house, and reached the boathouse only a few seconds after the others. He was on the shadowy side. There was a windew close at hand, and he looked through that to learn the lay of the ground within. The men were just taking the young woman through an inner door, and in the moonlight that streamed through an op- posite window he got a look at her face. She had fainted, and the hand had been rernoved from over her mouth, and thus lier face could be seen. She was handsome, but her face was now deathly in its pallor. Bertie dropped down and ran around to the end of the building, where he had noticed that a door was open, and entered. He had his guns hin his hands, and he immade straight for the door through which the young woman had been carried and which had not been tightly closed after- ward. Flinging the door open wide, he leaped in, guns ready to cover the fellows and demand an explanation. To his surprise, no one was thiere. All three had disappeared utterly and completely—as completely as if they had never been there. The room was lighted by the moon- hight that streamed in through the win- dow, and every corner of it could be.seen, and it was empty—deserted. What did it mean? Where had the men taken their victim ? Instantly Bertie regretted that he had not tackled them openly in the moon- light. However, he had acted for the best, and certainly he had had no idea of any such sudden and inysterious disappear- ance as this. He did not stand one moment idle. He looked for another door, hastening around the room to find it, but he found it not. The door by which he had entered and by which the young woman had been carried in, seemed to be the only one the room contained, That and the two windows were the only openings anywhere discoverable. It was the rear room of the lower floor of the building, and on coming in at the front Bertie had noticed stairs leading to the flour above. The thought now came to him that perhaps the men had retreated out of the rooin in the brief time it had taken him to come around from the window where he had Jooked in, yet he hardly believed jt possible. Had thev done so he cettainly must have encountered them in the outer room, he thought. Nevertheless, he ran out and to the stairs. Mounting them in haste, ke tried a door at the top and found that it was un- locked. All was dark at the head of the stairs, but as soon as Bertie opened the door the moonlight favored him again. The floor of this room was. carpeted, and here were billiard tables and other means of aiusement, together with a fine conniclooolks CO