Daily Tribune, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 21 May 1916 — Page 23

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'By AUTHWR ST'RIJVGE'R

Author of "The Wire Tappers," "The Gun Runners," "The Hand of Peril," Etc.

(The Marvelous Story, Hitherto Unpublished, From Which the Pathe Photoplay of the Same Name Was Made)

[Copyright, 1016, by Arthur Stringer.]

ELEVENTH EPISODE The Saving

of

Dan O'Mara

Hownof

OUNG Peggy O'Mara waa troubled in mind. She had become suspicious of her father. On more than

one occasion late that debt-harried toiler from the Applewaithe works had been visited by a stranger who Impressed the sophisticated young Peggy as anything but attractive. And an honest man, Peggy argued with herself, finds no need for stealing up to a house at night and closeting himself with its owner behind the locked door of a cellar workroom. So tho spindle-legged daughter of Dan O'Mara, watching for her chance, decided to investigate.

But the girl's chances for investigation were limited, for Peggy was a hard-driven young housekeeper, with a bedridden mother to look after as best she could. Late one night, however, when Dan O'Mara had led his mysterious visitor into his cellar workroom and locked the door behind him, the girl slipped off her broken-toed shoes and stole silently down to that underground chamber of mystery.

There, with her ear to the keyhole, she overheard enough to confirm her darkest suspicions. She stole away, stricken in spirit and struggling in vain to keep back her tears, for the girl's love for her toil-hardened father, if not always blind, was at least without limits. She waited until the mysterious visitor had stolen out through the house, with a parcel under his arm, and then once more made her way down to her father's workroom. The door, this time, was unlocked. So she entered noiselessly and crept over to where Dan O'Mara sat staring at the wall with unseeing eyes. "Pop, what're you thinkln'.about?" suddenly asked a tremulous voice close to his shoulder.

He swung about like a shot. "What should I be thinkin' about?" he demanded. "You're thinkin* about that man who was down here ten minutes ago," was the girl's answer. "What man?" equivocated the cul-

"Chinatown Charlie." "And how'd you know he's called Chinatown Charlie?" demanded re-bellious-eyed Dan O'Mara. "I know more'n that, pop," said the girl, with a gulp. "I know that city crook's ropin' you in for work I never thought you'd do!" "Work? What work?" "There's a bunch of opium smugglers got wise to the fact that the dye works is bringin' in tons of that Kaisow wood from China. And certain o' them blocks is goin' to come in hollow, with secret marks, and you're goin' to dig the opium out o' them and hide it here until that hop runner for Chinatown Charlie comes and carries it away in a laundry bag!" "Ain't your mother got to have medicine?" demanded her father. "Ain't we behind in our rent? "But they'd promised to raise your pay, over to the dye works!" she reminded him. "Instead o' which they took off me machine and gave it to that onearmed snitoh who claimed I'd been workin* against the company by tryin' to invent a chemical color that'd scon be sendin' their old logwood plant t' the scrap heap!"

A fighting light came into the Celtic eyes of the thin-blooded young girl. "They've never given you a chaact, none o* them!" she passionately avowed. "Then see that you don't be spoilin' me last one!" warned her father as he got up from the table and proceeded to hide away an artfully hollowed out block of Kaisow wood.

Silent as Peggy O'Mara remained on the subject of her discovery, she brooded long and darkly on this heavier cloud that hung over her home and her father's good name. It haunted her thoughts as she worked. It filled her blind young heart with a spirit of revolt. It converted her into a diminutive yet lowering-browed Ishmaelite.

Yet the Ishmael-Uke young face softened a little as she looked at' one member of that approaching group. For one fair-haired girl of about 20, dressed in black, whom young Applewaithe piloted about amid the roaring and clattering machinery and repeatedly addressed as "Miss Golden," was beautiful enough to bring a wayward pang of envy to the breast of Peggy O'Mara. As she watched her eyes suddenly widened in alarm. For Margory Golden, in staring about the room, had unconsciously moved closer to one of the ponderous machines. There the loose end of her motor-cape was snapped at by a spinning cog wheel, as a hound snaps at a bone. The next moment the whirling teeth had fastened themselves in the fabric of the garment edge, carrying it back between the jaws of the twin cogs that quickly closed on the cloth and seemed to reach out for more.

At the same moment that Margory Golden turned about to determine the

meaning of this sudden tug at her clothing, the alert-eyed Peggy O'Mara made an apparently maniacal spring for that astounded young woman's throat. For Peggy had long/ since learned the meaning of guard rails and the menace of high-powered machinery.

With a quick jerk of her thin young fingers Peggy tore the cape free where it was already straining against the white column of its wearer's throat. And with a movement equally quick she dragged the woman In black away from the whirling wheels, even before young Anson Applewaithe, with a belated shout of warning, sprang for the control lever of the machine itself.

It was not until Margory Golden saw the iron teeth of the cog wheels swallowing up the last of her vanishing cape that any inkling of her danger came home to her. And even then she could not quite understand the horror on young Applewaithe's face. "By Jove, that was lucky!" gasped that young man as he threw the shaft belt off the pulley and brought the machine to a stop.

And then Margory realized what it all meant. An unkempt factory girl had saved her from death.

Margory Golden stepped back and leaned against a guard rail. Then, after looking studiously at the slattern and slightly abashed figure of her deliverer, she opened her pocketbook and from it took out two or three neatly folded bank notes. These she held smilingly out to the girl with the broken-toed shoes.

But a quick flash spread over the usually colorless cheeks of Miss Peggy O'Mara as she backed determinedly away from the bills. "I don't want your money," announced the sullen-eyed girl, putting her hands behind her. But already young Applewaithe was discreetly doing his best to pilot his visitors away from the scene. "Money does them no good, you know," explained that affluent young man. "And I think you'll be interested In seeing our macerating vats!"

Peggy O'Mara stared after the departing group. So intently did she stare after them that she was oblivious of the movements of the onearmed man who had been stooping low over his machine, In a pretense of filling its oil cups. He crept out to where a small gold locket had dropped from Margory Golden's neck during the encounter. He caught it up from the oil-stained floor, looked at it for one short moment, and then slipped it triumphantly into hi9 pocket. After that he stood behind his machine, well out of sight, watching the fair-haired girl in black as she stepped out through the factory door. His eyes, as he watched her, were both calculating and sinister. But the pallid-faced girl standing so close beside him had no means of knowing that this preoccupied and stoop-shouldered workman who had lost his right hand was Jules Legar, long known to his enemies as the Iron Claw.'

That mysterious one-armed man, however, was destined to become better acquainted with Peggy O'Mara than she imagined. For that night, when the uneasy-minded girl knew her father to be once more shut up in Ms cellar workroom, the girl was further disturbed by the sound of stealthy steps across the bare wooden floor of her home. She tiptoed out through the door, crossed to the cellar steps, and crept silently down into the darkness.

There, vaguely outlined against the door cracks in the wall shielding her father, she could make out a stealthily inquisitive figure. And she knew that figure could mean no good to the house of O'Mara.

She crept as silently up the broken steps again, went to her father's timeworn tool chest and from It took out a somewhat rusty but ominous-looking revolver.

The thin-armed girl with the thickbodied revolver then crept back toward the cellar. She had reached the top of the stairs when she saw a dark figure slowly emerge from the gloom.She stood there, with her jaw set and her six-shooter leveled, waiting for the intruder.

Then a gasp of surprise broke from her lips, for she saw it was the onearmed workman from the Applewaithe factory. And the next moment she remembered that this was the same man who had tried to rob her father of his work. And she no longer hesitated. "Get out o' this house!" she commanded. "And get out quick, or I'll put a hole clean through you!" "Listen to me," persisted Legar as he backed through the door "you're doing your father more harm at this very moment than I could ever do him." "I'll take me chance on that," was her retort. "But you're losing your chance you're

Legar did not complete that sentence. Instead, he leaped suddenly toward the girl with the firearm, for he had noticed her dress sleeve catch

11

SYNOPSIS

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in JfOCH GOLDEN lives with his wife and daughter in a modern Eden J2J until their home on "Windward Island" is invaded by Dr.. Ludwig Palidori. Palidori, by threats, compromises the wife his effort to steal the secret of the island. Golden discovers them, drives the wife from him, and not only crushes Palidori's hand that caressed her hut brands his faoe. Palidori in revenge opens the flood gates of the island and escapes with Mar' gory, the child. Golden and his wife narrowly escape.

Twelve years later Margory has grown into beautiful young womanhood. Golden is a hardened millionaire. Palidori, or as he now calls himself, Legar, turns the girl over to Casavanti, the "tenderloin" princeling, but she. is rescued by a mysterious stranger who wears a laughing mash. He tells her he is the "Hammer of God."

The girl is taken to Golden's home by this stranger and thrust into Golden's study. But just as he discovers who she is she is spirited away again. Manley, Ms frivolous young secretary, traces her to the "OwVs Uest," where Legar and his evil companions live. She is rescued from there by the mysterious stranger by the remarkable expedient of encasing her in a brandy cask and driving off with her.

Legar then threatens Golden with robbery, and after setting off an explosion under the Third National Bank calmly walks away with $50,000, under the guise of a forged letter. He escapes with the money.

Manley is kidnaped from Golden's home to the OwVs Nest by Legar. He escapes. In the meantime Margory has been locked *in the big vault qt Golden'8 home by Legar, who escapes with the misting half of the chart indicating the treasure on Windward Island. The Laughing Mask, hiding in Legar"s limousine, snatches this from his hands, however, and escapes. Manley returns to the house and, with the aid of Margory's trained parrot, who repeats the safe combination, releases Margory—alive, but unconscious.

Golden receives the "Spotted Warning" from Legar demanding that he give him the missing portion of the treasure chart of Windward Island. He laughs at the warning and sends Margory to his sister's country home for safety. En route the machine collides with Legar's auto and Margory is rescued by the Mysterious Mask, who takes her to her mother. Golden, fearing Margory is in Legar's hands, and receiving a final warning from Legar, keeps the demanded appointment on the twenty-fourth floor of the Central Tower Building.

Aeroplane flights, disastrous auto chases and wrecks, more dynamite arid other manifestations of Legar's activities keep the Golden household continually on the alert. Once Count Lugi da Espares, a foreigner, guest in the Golden home, endeavors to prove to Golden his love for the daughter and attempts to trap Legar. Although he and Margory believe the villain dead in the river, he appears at a masque ball given at the Golden home, and with his aids dynamites the great vault which contains the missing section of the Windward Island treasure chart. The count is killed in the collapse of the vault chamber.

When Margory is captured again by Legar young Manley rescues her from a gas-fllled room. Later, an accomplice of Legar's, a monkey-shaped creature, endeavors to hill her with poisoned arrows, but here again the Laughing Mask bobs up and sends a note, explaining that he had removed the poison from the blow-gun arrows and that the scratches are harmless.

On the theory that Legar thinks him dead, Manley arranges his funeral in effigy. A wan likeness of himself is entombed in the Golden vault. Legar is more cautious than the youth reckoned, however, and investigates one dark midnight. As he discovers that the body is warn Manley and a group of officers enter and trap him. He explodes a hand grenade, filled with powerful explosives, escaping. Later, however, he is overtaken by the Laughing Mask high up in the scaffolding of the near-by steel works. There, over white-hot caldrons of metal, they struggle. back and forth. Legar escapes and the Laughing Mask drops to the ground below, nearly plunging into the liquid metal.

NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY

in the screen-door hook. This had resulted in the momentary deflection of that ever-menacing revolver barrel, and Legar's long fingers had encompassed that weapon before she could level it again. With a quick turn or two he had twisted it out of her hand. Then he caught her by the shoulder and swung her fiercely about. "Now, my girl, I'm going to tell you a thing or two," said the man with the revolver, stooping closer to her in the moonlight. "You think I'm an enemy of your father's. But you're wrong. All I am is a treasury agent. And I've been wondering if you know how many years it means for a man who gets caught in a $20,000 dope-smuggling coup?"

Legar turned and nodded pregnantly toward the cellar where he knew O'Mara to be. "You've nothin' on me father!" protested the now terrified girl. "Nothing beyond the fact, of course, that he's carrying Kaisow wood away from the Applewaithe factory. And why he's doing that you know as well as I do!"

A sob suddenly shook the meager body of the white-faced girl. "For Gawd's sake, mister, gather me in if you want to! Take toe, but don't send me father up! He's a good man at heart, and wouldn't so much as harm a fly! You can kill me if you want to, but don't be hard on me father!"

Legar stood thoughtfully regarding her. "I don't want to kill you, my girl. I want to help you. And if you're willing to take a turn at helping me in a move or two I believe I could still make this thing come out all right." "You'll let me father off?" she demanded. "Yes." "Then tell me what I'm to do?" "You remember that young lady at the works this morning, who nearly got drawn into the machinery?" "The skirt with the starry eyes? Sure!" "Well, I want to meet that young lady in secret." "And where do I come in?" asked the worldly wise girl. "I want you to go to her house and asked her to come to the sluiceroom of the factory tomorrow night." "I can see that mi'.'ionaire dame losin' her beauty sleep to beat it out to a dye dump like this!" "Then it's up to you to take her there," was Legar's retort. "But I ain't no miracle worker!"

Legar drew back. "Then our bargain is to fall

through?" he demanded, with a head movement toward the cellar door. "But how'm I goin' to make her come?" inquired the distressed girl.

Legar drew out the gold locket which he had picked up from the factory floor. "This dropped from her throat when you tore her cape free this morning. Take that to her. Tell her you'd found it after she left. She'll feel sorry for you. In fact, you've got to make her feel sorry for you. You'd better try a faint, when you're talking to her, and tell her you haven't eaten for a couple of days. She'll try to give you money. But you must tell her that your mother is worse off than you are." "But s'posin' she won't swallow that sob stuff?" "It's up to you to make her. And the best way to get her out here is to persuade her to fill a basket of food and wine and bring it back with her in her own car. She knows you belong to the factory settlement here, and she won't be suspicious. You do your work right, and you'll have her here tomorrow night."

The youthful eyes which life had already left hard studied the sinister figure in the moonlight. "And when I get her out to that sluiceroom, what're you goin' to do with her?"

The one-armea man laughed quietly. "That's something strictly between her and me," was his calmly enunciated reply as he stepped slowly back and disappeared through the shrubbery beside the O'Mara cottage.

The girl stood staring after him without moving. So intently did she look after that vanishing figure that she did not observe a second figure, •even more mysterious than the first, as it slipped out of the shadows and stepped quietly up beside her.

She turned with a start and stared up at the stranger confronting her. And it did not add to her peace of mind to discover that this stranger wore a mask over his face. "What d' you want here?" was her brusque demand. "I'm looking for a young girl who happens to be in trouble," was the quietly spoken reply. "Then I guess you'll have to keep on travelin'," announced Peggy as she swung up the broken steps with assumed nonchalance, strode in through the door and shut it after her.

The Drum* of Death.

It was not until Margory Golden was seated in the suede-upholstered landlaulet that she found time to question the expediency of her midnight mission. Yet as she looked at

Read the Story—See the Motion Pictures at Your Favorite Theater

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the unhappy and hollow-eyed girl at her side she felt sure that her journey, odd as it Jiad at first seemed to hpr, could not be altogether a mistake. The girl was honest, of that there could be no question, for she had journeyed many long miles to restore a trivial bit of jewelry to its owner. She had also refused to accept money. She had even seemed unwilling, after Margory had packed a large motor hamper with jelly and milk and potted meats, to have that luxurious young lady venture so far a-fleld at such an hour of the night. But Margory felt that it was a case where the loss of time might possibly mean the loss of a life, and she was glad, as they went humming out past the thinning lights of the city's remotest suburbs, that she had not hesitated to do what she could to repay her debt to the daughter of Dan O'Mara. "Why are we stopping at/he Applewaithe works?" she askea'a^ the car drew up beside the unlighted roadside. "Because me mother's here for the night," explained the wistful-eyed girl as she clambered down from the car, grateful for the gloom that already surrounded htr. "You see, ma'am, they put us out o' the house this mornin'! So pop got the watchman here to let me mother sleep in one o' the basement rooms." "But who'll take me to where your mother is?" asked Margory, gathering up her skirts as she glanced into the dingy storeroom feebly lighted by its one dingy electric bulb. "I'll be baclc in a minute, ma'am," the girl replied, only too glad of any reasonable excuse for disappearing.

Margory in the meantime peered doubtfully about the somber building in which she foufcd herself so unexpectedly a visitor. Along one side of the room in which she stood she could make out dark masses of dye wood piled as high as her head. Beside this she saw, in the uncertain light, an open pit filled with water. Into one side of this pit ran a cement-walled sluiceway, stained almost black, with a Watergate set in the upper part of its channel. The opening in the far side of the pit, which was guarded by a heavy iron grill as big as a park gate, led into a high-walled cavern, across which stretched a number of huge steel drums. Set in these drums were rows of knife-edged cleavers.

The polished surface of these great blades of steel shone ominously in the half-light.

Margory was still staring at the great drums glistening with cleavers when, with a suddenness that startled her, the electric lights were thrown on across the roof of the chamber. She wheeled about quickly to discover the cause for this. As she did so an involuntary gasp escaped from her lips. For, standing beside the door, with his fingers still on the switch, the Iron Claw himself confronted her. "Why are you afraid of me?" he confidently purred. For the girl drew slowly away while he as slowly followed after her, step by step. Then, with a movement that was feline in its quickness, he flung out an arm and seized her. Then he turned her deliberately about until she faced the black-walled sluiceway. But the girl shrank back. "Don't be afraid of it, my dear," he mocked as he led her forcibly, step by step to the lip of the channel through which the mill water was curling and

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"For Gawd's sake, mister," pleaded the girl, "don't send me father np! He couldn't hurt a fly. Kttt me if you want to, but don't be hard on him!'1

eddying. "In fact, I want you to look at it closely and understand it fully. It's wonderful, wonderful for many reasons. At the end of this sluice, you see, is a log mangle. I have seen those knives shred a six-inch timber in less than a minute's time."

He turned and stared down at the white-faced girl, drinking to the full the dizzy wine of her terror, wringing a voluptous delight out of her wordless gape of horror. Then the look on his face suddenly altered, and he wheeled about, still clutching .the girl close to his side. He stood staring at the door which he had locked but a minute before. And his face suddenly hardened as he saw the heavy iron latch of that door move.

Margory, following his glance, also watched that door. And when she heard the thump of a heavy timber on its panels a new hope sped through her. That hope equipped her with fresh strength. It prompted her to struggle against the Iron Claw with the utmost power of her desperate young body. But her enemy, for all her efforts, was too much for her. Foot by foot he forced her back toward the open sluiceway. Then, with a muttered gasp of finality and a sudden upward heave of his shoulders, he flung the girl headlong into the water.

As he did so the door burst open. For the heavy-hearted Peggy O'Mara, after slipping guiltily away frbm the sluiceroom where she had left her quite unsuspecting victim, awakened for the first time to the full enormity of her offense. As she stood there in the darkness, staring back at the dark mass of the factory walls, the aches of remorse lay heavy on her young heart. 'She was standing there, with tears of helplessness in her eyes, when a figure stepped up to her. She would have fled, incontinently, at the approach of that intruder. But the stranger held her with a gently restraining hand. And as she peered up at his face she saw that it was the man in the laughing mask. "The righting of wrongs is a part of^my business in life. Can I help you?"

The girl hesitated. "Yes," she finally confessed, with a burst of tears. And through her sobs she brokenly recounted as much as she dared of that night's proceedings. But she continued to weep. "And me father'll be goin' to the pen for what I'm tellin' you," she wailed out in her misery. "He will not," avowed the Laughing Mask, with decision. "He'll have more than help before this night is over, and a better job and a clear conscience before another one comes! But ttell me first where you left this girl you brought out from the city?" "Inside the door o' the sluiceroom there." "Good God!" gasped the man in the mask. Then he caught the spindlelegged Peggy O'Mara by th3 hand and started for the shadowy pile of the factory on the run. "Quick!" he said as he ran, "show me the door!"

The half-breathless girl pointed it out to him. But as he ran up to it he found it locked. He stooped and frantically caught up a piece of limber almost as long and heavy as his own body. Peggy O'Mara, seeing that its weight seemed more than he could manage, promptly ran to hi3 assistance. "Now, come together," he said, "for we'v#%ot to k^ock that door in!"

Twice, three times, they charged the

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door before it gave way. But the moment its panels crashed in the Laugh-i ing Mask leaped through the opening1. As he did so he caught sight of the two struggling figures on the brink of the blackened runway. As he saw the figure of a woman flung headlong into the open sluiceway he lea$R. with a shout toward the one-armed' man who stood on its brink. But that one-armed mah, with a lightninglike movement, whipped a revolver from his pocket, swung round on the intruder and fired.

The Laughing Mask wheeled half way about, staggered a step or two, and then fell forward on his face.

The wide-eyed Peggy O'Mara, following at his heels, saw both that fall and the fact that the Iron Claw had already leaped toward the control board of the water mangle. Peggy screamed aloud, shrilly and belligerently, a3 she leaped for the man already before the control board. She caught at him, clawing at his upraised arm, fought him with every jot of her thin-blooded girlish body.

But she was no match for the de-» termined and malignant opponent. The most she could do was to distract and harry him for a precious moment' or two. Then, realizing she -was a factor to be eliminated without scruple, he caught her bodily up from the floor, raised her above his head, and with a sickening thud, sent her body against the solid masonry of the factory wall. .«

She lay there stunned, without moving, moaning brokenly with pain, as Legar darted back to the control lever of the mangle drums and shifted that lever to the spot marke'd "start." The next moment, he had thrown over the'switch of the sluicegate qpntrol.

He ventured one triumphant glance in the direction of the whirring mangle knives and the slowly ascending gate. Then, with a grimace of satisfaction, he leaped over the inert body of the Laughing Mask, ran to the door and disappeared in the darkness.

Had that flight been less hurried Legar might have observed that the eyes of the Laughing Mask were open, and the inert body, weak as it was from the loss, of blood from a flesh wound in the hip, was already painfully gathering itself together for some predetermined movement. That movement, wavering and unsteady as it was, took the crawling man directly to the control board of the water mangle.

There, by a supreme effort, he raised himself to his feet, groped about with an unsteady hand and swung back the lever.

The next moment the roar of the"' machinery stopped, the thrashing knives stood poised. But it had been only in the nick of time. For B£argory Golden, who had clung to the sluicegate until its withdrawing bars had compelled her to relax her last desperate clutch on its bars and drop back into the black tide carrying her closer and closer to those flailing blades of death, now caught and clung to a graphite-covered driving chain little more than a yard from the foremost mangle drum which towered above her like" open jaw. And as she clung there a renewing wave of hope swept through her body, for from the sluiceway wall above lier she could hear a reassuring if somewhat unsteady voice calling down to her. And that voice, she knew, was the voice of the Laughing Mask! (To be continued next week.)

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