The Argosy for May — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

WANTED BY should ring for the butler! I'll be jig- gered if I c&n see any bell.” CHAPTER XIV. HELPLESS IN A HUT. * In a frenzy of fury and despair, Lef- fingwell tugged savagely at the ropes which fettered his hands and feet, bind- ing him to the perpendicular beam. “°?'Tain’t no use doing that, comrade,” Simple Simon remarked sadly. “If you was three times as strong as you are you couldn’t bu’st them ropes. ‘They’re too darned strong. You'll only exhaust ue’ by trying it. Were in a bad ; but it ain’t any use gettings excited over it. Let’s take it calm and easy, and hope that somebody will come and rescue us before we die of starvation.” “If only I knew where that dirty cad Mitchell intends to go,” groaned Leffing- well. ‘“ That’s what’s worrying me. Il don’t care about myself, or what happens to me; but it makes my blood boil! to think that, after our rare good luck in catching him for the second time to-day, he’s managed to slip through our hands again. What: blanked fools we were to come here unarmed. If we had carried guns, I feel confident that we could have got the best of them.” ‘“ We'd have stood an even chance, at least,” Simple Simon agreed. “ It would have been a case of who could have fired first, I guess. At any rate, if I’d had a gun, I’d have put a bullet through the ugly head of that darned bulldog. The brute didn’t do a thing to my leg. It feels mighty sore where he bit me.” “We bungled the whole thing dis- gracefully,” growled Leffingwell. ‘ We rushed into this ambush like a couple of blind mules. : We might have suspected that Mitchell would be armed and on his guard.” “Well, we’ll know better next time,” remarked Simple Simon, making an he- roic -effort to appear cheerful. “ It’s no use worrying over what’s already hap- pened. What’s done can’t be undone.” “Next time?” queried Leffingwell fiercely. “There won’t be any next time. Do you think we stand the ghost of a show of catching sight of that cad again? Now that he knows that we’re leaving the door ajar.” UNCLE SAM. 295 on to the secret of this shanty, he won't be fool enough to come here any more. The chances are that he’s now on his way out of town, and .won’t come back to this city again until all danger is OVET = es ‘It’s too bad,” sighed Simon. ‘ By the way, messmate, I wonder who owns this here shack—Mitchell, or the one- eyed Chinaman? They make a mighty queer pair, I’m thinking. Wonder how the divvle they ever got together.” “T don’t know, and I don’t care,” growled Leffingwell. ‘“ Such things don’t interest me. just now. What I want to know is how we can get free of these confounded ropes, and make after that cad before he has a chance to get far away. It seems to me that, with all your experience on the seas, you ought to know enough about ropes to be able to suggest something.” “My experience on the seas teaches me that, when a feller is lashed to a mast with ropes of the thickness of these here, he stands about as much chance of freeing himself as a rat in a trap,” re- torted Simon sadly. ‘These knots was tied to stay, my lad. I give that there Chink credit for knowing how to tie a knot that is a knot. I shouldn’t be sur- prised to learn that he’s been a seaman, at some time or other. cor shout for help, I guess. ”Tain’t likely that it will do us any good; but we might as well try, anyway.” They shouted in unison; but the only response. they obtained was the furious barking of the bulldog outside. They could hear the savage beast, maddened by their shouts, hurling his body against the closed door of the hut, in a vain’ attempt to get in. “We can thank our lucky sfars that that door is closed,’ remarked Simon,. with a shudder. ‘ Bound and helpless as we are, we’d make a nice meal for that vicious brute if he could get to us. I’m mighty thankful to them fellers for not ‘Never mind the dog,” Leffingwell commanded. -“ Keep on shouting. If only somebody would come along and hear us!” “*Tain’t very likely to happen, afraid,” replied Simon. I’m ‘That deserter 0)(0)(6) ANU S The only thing for us to do is to (C@