If Dick had been fool enough to show fight then there is no doubt that
he would have been killed outright, for the man Mudd got him by the
throat with his left hand and at the same time tried his old game of
whipping out a knife and holding it over Dick’s heart.
“Hold on!” cried Dick. “Hold on, there, Mr. Mudd. Aren’t you making a
mistake?”
Dick spoke with amazing calmness considering the circumstances.
No one to have heard him would have dreamed of the excitement he was
laboring under just then.
“No mistake at all,” laughed Mudd. “Mebbe you think I am mad?”
“You act that way. I don’t know you and you can’t possibly know me. I’m
only a poor assistant in the National Museum. If you are working for
money I don’t see where you expect to gain anything by sticking that
knife into me.”
This remark and the coolness with which it was uttered undoubtedly
saved Dick’s life.
Martin Mudd immediately changed his tune.
“Say,” he exclaimed, “you give me an idea, young feller. I am working
for money every time and the man who bids the highest for my services
is the man who gets them--mebbe you’d like to bid.”
“I’ll make a bid for my life, you bet,” said Dick. “Suppose you explain
the situation. I’ll be blest if I understand it at all.”
“That’s business,” replied Mr. Mudd, looking over at the hut; “just
drop that gun of yours while I hold you as you are. Don’t try to use it
on me now, boy, for if you do by the piper who played before Moses I’ll
bury this knife in your heart.”
Dick threw the revolver down on the ground. There was no chance to use
it with that terrible grip on his throat.
“That’s right,” said Mudd, kicking the revolver off to some distance.
“Now we can talk. Promise me that you won’t make a move and I’ll let go
your throat.”
“I promise,” said Dick. “There’s no sense in our quarreling. We don’t
know each other. What I want to find out is what all this is about.”
Martin Mudd let go and leaned back against the rocks, indulging in a
hearty laugh.
“Of course we don’t know each other--that’s got nothing to do with it,”
he said. “Now, look here, young Darrell, suppose I could put you in the
way of picking up a big fortune--say a million and over. What about
that?”
“Honestly?” asked Dick.
“Yes, honestly. Oh, I’m not joking. I’m in dead earnest. How much will
you give?”
“I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars the day I come into the
money,” replied Dick, but when he said it he had not the faintest
notion that Martin Mudd’s singular words were anything more than a
bluff.
“Humph! Well, that’s business, but perhaps you’ll make it more.”
“A hundred thousand dollars is a good lump of money,” said Dick. “You
were going to explain about this. Do it, and----”
“Not now. You are the highest bidder by a lot. Will you sign a paper to
that effect?”
“Certainly I will if you will let me read it before I sign.”
“You shall draw it up yourself.”
“That’s satisfactory. Now what?”
“Where’s your camp? You were coming up here monster hunting. I know.
Thought you would find that big prehistoric monster Ike Izard claimed
to have seen. Ha! Ha! What fools your scientists are.”
“Not quite so big fools as you may think,” replied Dick. “I’ve seen
that same monster all right.”
“Rats! Rubbish! Come on to the hut. We’ll talk this thing over.
I--merciful mother of Moses! Look there!”
Suddenly the water of Izard Lake, close to where they stood, began to
boil in the same old fashion, and all at once a huge head, shaped like
a crocodile’s, was thrust out.
It was not the Plesiosaurus at all, but a monster of an entirely
different sort.
Its vast body was covered with great scales, its huge eyes seemed to
reflect back the moonlight. It opened its cavernous mouth fully a yard
long and uttered a hissing roar which seemed to shake the very earth as
it made a rush shoreward, directly for the place where Dick and Martin
Mudd stood.
The effect was to break up Dick’s little session with that eccentric
individual on the instant, for Mudd gave a wild yell of terror, took to
his heels and ran toward the hut, leaving Dick to shift for himself.
But Dick was not running away.
He was altogether too much interested in this wonderful monster.
Without an instant’s hesitation he scrambled up on the rocks behind
him, stopping and looking back when he had gained a flat ledge about
ten feet up from the ground.
Undoubtedly he then witnessed a sight which no other man had ever seen
before, unless it might be some Indian wandering through this part of
the Bad Lands.
Without paying the least attention to Dick the monster came up out of
the water entirely and went waddling along the shore on four little
stumpy legs, dragging behind it a thick, scaly tail fully thirty feet
in length and taking his course toward the hut.
Martin Mudd looked back and saw it coming. The hut door flew open and
Bill Struthers and the man Tony came rushing out.
“Gee whiz! What’s that? Have I got ’em again?” Tony yelled and he made
a bee line for the horses.
“Not without me. I don’t stay here none now,” shouted Struthers,
following him.
“Hold on. Hold on, you fools. Get your guns and shoot the critter.
Don’t go off and leave me so,” Martin Mudd called out at the top of his
lungs.
But his companions paid no attention to him.
Cutting the hobbles, they flung themselves on their horses and went
dashing up the lake shore.
Mudd paused for a moment, looked back and hesitated.
At the same instant the lake monster treated him to another taste of
that tremendous hissing roar, alongside of which the bellow of the
Plesiosaurus was sweet music.
It was too much for Mr. Mudd. He went bounding toward the remaining
horses, which stood half paralyzed with fear.
In a moment he was astride one of them and dashing away after the
others, while the monster, without altering its course, kept steadily
on toward the hut.
“Great Scott! What’s going to become of Clara Eglinton?” thought Dick.
“Is she tied up in there a prisoner all alone?”