Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 April 1942 — Page 15

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Serial Story— Mexican

Masquerade

By Cecil Carnes

CHAPTER TEN

NO SIDE-WINDER ever struck faster than Allan Steele He pivoted in his own length on the ground and came to his feet in the same swift movement. His forward leap and an upward thrust of his powerful left arm knocked aside the barrel of the menacing rifle. It exploded harmlessly. He swung a haymaker with his right which would have torn the East Indian's head from his shoulders if it had found the mark. Probably the fellow was unprepared for any resistatice at all, let alone a counter-attack so dynamic Perhaps his orders were not té shoot \inless necessary. He gave ground almost automatically, and gave it barely in time to escape the looping fist which buzzed by his nose, He shouted something in Japanese, then went spinning into a pateh of eactus as Allan's left reached his jaw in an uppercut full of authority. If the Japanese words were a command to close in, his six yellow henchmen had not waited for it. They rushed forward at Allan's first movement. One of them tripped over the EBurasian's rifle, another was knocked sprawling by the Eurasian himself in flight, a third folded up with a grunt and went to earth as Allan's knee drove his stomach against his spine and plastered it there. But still there were three of the formidable orientals left. They bored in, grim, silent, purposeful. Two leaped for Allan's arms, caught them and clung like leaches. The 1ast man dove headlong to grasp his knees in a football tackle, but a well-aimed kick in the face diverted his aim. He sprawled, his arms still groping blindly for their objective. By now the Eurasian was on his feet again, but standing prudently to one side. His hideous face, even more repulsive from hate, he snapped orders in words that crackled. As if prodded by imaginary elephant gods, the temporarily disabled Japs sprang erect and tore in again like men possessed of fiends: they descended upon Allan with the impact of six living bate tering-«rams, = 4 » HE FOUGHT them tooth and nail, also with elbows and knees and fists and feet. The knot of struggling men swayed this way and that, spinning around in a series of crazy circles. No sound came from the straining bodies except Allan's gasping breath and an oceasional grunt, with a Japanese accent, at one of his desperate lunges connected with some vital spot in an enemy's anatomy. His aim was to break loose for just the one instant he needed to get out his automatic. He could not do it. He was fighting a 12armed human octopus, and every time he broke the clinging grip of a single tentacle, two others replaced it. By sheer weight and brute force, he rushed the sextet through the clump of pines and to the edge of the steep declivity,. A moment the twisting group teetered on the brink; another saw them over it and pinwheeling down the sharp incline in a choking cloud of dust and rubble. Allan fared best of them all: in the center of the revolving mass, his protective covering of enemy bodies shielded his own from thorn and cactus. In the end, it was the Peninsula itself that beat him. At the foot of the hill something akin to a display of fireworks daszled his brain; but before he could really appreciate the rockets, shooting stars and Roman candles, a curtain of blackness fell on the show. Quite simply, his head had hit a rock with a force that nearly split tiem both ,.. ° # 8 HE WAS stunned only momen-| tarily, but that was enough for the pack of wolves who had pulled him down. He opened his eyes to find himself helpless, his arms lashed

sitting like leaden weights oh each of his legs. The Eurasian stood above him, staring down vindietively. “So you've come back to life,” he commented, and drove a booted toe deep into Allan's side. “Believe me, it will be a pleasure to watch you go out of it again—presentiy!” He added something to his men. The four who were holding Allan to the ground got up, raising him with them. He caught his balance uncertainly, still dizzy from the crack on his head, but he was able to control his limbs when his cap-

of the hill and down to the shore. They passed several squads of workmen, all Japanese, who merely stared at the party incuriously and went on about their business. There seemed to be a whole fleet of small launches in the company's service. Allan and his seven keepers tumbled into one and headed for the largest island. He kept his eyes open as they putt-putted toward a dock, and apparently the

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ing it in his niemory against a time such data might be useful. He was down but not yet out; his mind was active and fighting even if his body was helpless. He was standing in front of a flat-top mahogany desk, the Bura{sian on one side of him, a guard jon the other. The rest of the capture party, he supposed, must have dropped out somewhere en route. Two middle-aged Japanese were seated in chairs behind the desk, one of them in a well-cut uniform. It was he who came briskly to the matter in hand, speaking good Spanish in a high-pitched voice. “You are Senor Allan Steele? American? Here to photagraph the peninsula for a magazine?” Allan inclined his head to each quety, although they were more statements of fact than questions. “I am Col. Watanabe of the Japanese army. This is my colleague, Dr. Ishizuka of the Tokyo Academy of Science.” Allan bowed. The pair rose as one man and bowed back. “I regret, Senor Steele,” went on

Eurasian notéd his alertness. A curt watanahe, “that your enthusiasm

order from him in Japanese and one of the men produced a dirty yellow cloth which he wrapped about the prisoner's head, blindfolding him effectively. 2 . 2 HE COULD NOT make much of his surroundings as he was guided ashore and led inland. ‘There seemed to be a concrete path under his feet. The sound of many chattering voices indicated quite a crowd had turned out to inspect him. Flattering, but unsatisfactory; a little while before he had been wishing he knew soils: now he was regretting his education had stopped short of the Japanese lahguage. . Presently the party halted. Allan heard a door unlocked and opened. They passed through and the door was shut behind with a rattle of bars and a metallic clang that suggested iron. A short walk —he counted 10 paces—thén down a flight of 10 stone steps. Another door, complete with sound effects of bars and metal. Another stairway, again leading down, and another stone-flagged passage. He was reminded unhappily of a movie he had ohce seen int which & man was taken down into the bowels of the earth and left to rot in a medieval dungeon. £ Another door, was unbarred -and swung open, he sensed a change in the light even through his bandage. He felt he was in a room, brilliantly illuminated even if 30 feet underground. = ” » A VOICE spoke in Japanese. The cloth was whipped from his eyes. He was in a comfortably furnished room, equipped like any modern office and lighted by electricity from an overhead fixture. The company, he reflected, must have its own

behind him at wrist and elbow, Two

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SELLS DIME

for photography should have led you to a hilltep from which you were observing our little settlement through a pair of field glasses.” The offending glasses were on the desk before him, together with Ale lan’s automatic. “I further regret, senor, that you thereby intruded on a privacy we deem essential to our safety.” Watanabe paused as if to give emphasis to his next words. “The penalty for your transgression, senor, is—death” (To Be Continued)

(All events, names an aracters in this story are ed ots)

DEFENSE | STAMPS AND PEANUTS

NEW ORLEANS, April 6 (U. PP). ~Nickel-a-bag peanuts went up to 28 cents today at the stand of Martin Schutsler, 73-year-old vendor. With each bag he gives two 10-cent defense stamps. Reluctantly Schutzler, whose parents ware born in Germany, still sells stampless peanuts for a nickel. “Id rather not because we've got to blow up Hitler," he said. Business, he said, was picking up.

NAZI SPIES USED NOVEL AS CODE KEY

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 6 (U. P.) —Police revealed today that the German espionage ring, headed by Niels Christiensen, used the Rachel Field novel, “All This and Heaven Too,” as a code key for messages sent by clandestine radio transmitters to Berlin. Christiensen and 200 other alleged espionage agents were rounded up in a series of arrests during the

last two weeks, and are now held on the Isla de Mores in Guanabara

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