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Mystery Stories for Boys
PANTHER EYE
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[Illustration: "She's tied. There's terror in her eyes...."]
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Mystery Stories for Boys
PANTHER EYE
By
ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
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Copyright 1921
By
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved
Made in U. S. A.
Panther Eye
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A Mysterious Death 7
II "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest" 18
III A Fight in the Night 32
IV Chukche Treachery 43
V The Big Cat 54
VI In the Grip of Terror 68
VII The Mystery of Mine No. 1 79
VIII Three Men Disappear 90
IX Startling Perils 101
X Playing a Lone Hand 117
XI Dangling in Mid Air 132
XII The Russian Dagger 144
XIII Cio-Cio-San 156
XIV Nearing the City of Gold 164
XV Trapped 178
XVI The City Of Gold 186
XVII Kidnapped 198
XVIII Under Machine-Gun Fire 208
XIX Johnny Goes Into Action 219
XX Some Mysteries Uncovered 229
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PANTHER EYE
CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS DEATH
"He is dead!"
Johnny Thompson felt the grip of the speaker's hand on his arm and started
involuntarily. How could this strange fellow know that Frank Langlois was
dead--if he was dead? And was he? They were surrounded by inky blackness.
It was the thick darkness of a subterranean cavern, a mine. This was a
gold mine. Three minutes ago their electric torch had flickered out and
they had been unable to make it flash again.
"C'mon," said the other man, "Pant," as the laborers called him, "we don't
need that thing."
To his utter astonishment, Johnny had felt himself urged forward by this
Pant with the easy, steady, forward march of one who is certain of every
step. Twice they had turned to avoid mine-props. They had gone back into
the mine perhaps a hundred feet. Now, with not a spark of light shining
out of the gloom, they had paused and his companion had uttered those
three words:
"He is dead."
Was the man they had come to seek really dead? If he was, who had killed
him? How did Pant know he was dead? Surely in that Egyptian midnight no
man could see.
As Johnny threw an involuntary glance to the spot where Pant's face should
be, he gasped. Had he caught a yellow glow from one eye of the man? He
could not be sure about it, for at that instant the electric torch flashed
on again as suddenly as it had gone out.
Johnny's eyes followed the yellow circle of light. Then with a low
exclamation he sprang forward. There, not ten feet before them, lay the
form of Frank Langlois. To all appearances he was dead. Again through
Johnny's mind there flashed the telegraphic questions:
"Who killed him? How did Pant know?"
Thrusting the torch into Johnny's hand, his companion leaped forward and,
with a cat-like motion, dropped down beside the prostrate form. Tearing
away at jacket and shirt, he bared the breast and placed his ear close
down upon the cold flesh.
"Dead all right," he sighed at last. "Wonder what killed him?"
He still crouched there, as a cat crouches beside its kill. As if he
searched for the answer to his last question, his eyes roved about the
floor.
This moment of silence gave Johnny time to study Pant, to recall what he
really knew about him.
He was a strange chap, this Pant. He never bunked with the other laborers
of the outfit, but had a private little pup-tent affair that he had made
of long-haired deer skin and canvas. In this he slept. He was slight of
build but wiry. Possessed of a peculiar supple strength and agility, he
easily surpassed other men of greater weight in everything he undertook,
both of labor and sport. One queer thing about him was that he always wore
a pair of glasses with smoked lenses of such large proportions that they
hid his eyes completely; he was never without them. One more thing, he
always wore the Eskimo cut of garments; in cold weather, deer skin; in
warm weather and at work, blue drill; but always that middy-styled cloak
with the hood attached. And the hood was never off his head, at least not
in waking hours. He had dressed that way even in Seattle, where Johnny had
signed him up to join his outfit on this perilously uncertain search for
gold in the Seven Mines which were supposed to exist in Arctic Siberia, at
the mouth of the Anadir River across from Alaska.
And yet, with all this strange dress, the man was not an Eskimo. Johnny
knew that from the looks of him and from his talk. Indeed, in a burst of
frankness, the man had once told him that when very young he had been
picked up in New York by some orphan asylum and sent west to be raised by
a rancher; that he had soon run away from his foster home and had, since
that time, lived by his wits, sometimes in western cities, sometimes in
the wilds of the Rocky Mountains. He had made three trips to foreign
countries and yet, as nearly as he himself could calculate, he was not now
more than nineteen, a mere boy, but certainly a most mysterious one.
Johnny's mind took up the problems of the new enterprise upon which he was
entering. How would this tragedy affect his work and, most of all, the
minds of his men?
Johnny, as you will remember from reading "Triple Spies," the first book
of his thrilling adventures, had been in this vast, silent, and mysterious
land of snow before. He had traveled over three thousand miles of it and
had experienced many a strange adventure. Not least of these was the
rediscovery of the Seven Mines of Siberia. These mines had first been
discovered by an American prospector who, having crossed Bering Strait one
summer with natives in their skin boats, had explored the Arctic Siberian
rivers. He believed that there was an abundance of the precious yellow
metal on the Kamchatkan Peninsula, just as there was in its twin
peninsula, Alaska. In this he had not been disappointed. But when it came
to mining this gold, many problems arose. Chief among these was the fact
that the land belonged to the Russian Czar, from whom a concession must be
secured.
He had, at last, sold his secret to the Big Five of Chicago, five of the
world's richest men. These men had secured the needed concession and had
shipped large quantities of mining machinery and coal to the mouth of the
river when the Czar's government suddenly went to smash. Everything was
dropped for the time being and there matters stood when Johnny had come
upon the mines. Some of them were well opened up for operation, but the
machinery lay rusting in the sheds.
When he had made his way back to Chicago, about six months previous to the
opening of our story, he had had serious matters to attend to, matters
which were vital to the very foundations of his Government. After these
had been settled and the Big Five, having learned that Hanada, Johnny's
Japanese friend and school mate, who had made the entire Siberian journey
with him and had previously worked in the Seven Mines, had been killed by
a mysterious shot, fired from the depths of Chicago River, they turned to
Johnny, as the one who could best aid them in solving the knotty problem
of working the Seven Mines.
Johnny, with his long experience as a soldier in eastern Russia, was able
to tell them frankly that there would be practically no chance of
obtaining a concession of any value from the uncertain government that
existed in that region.
They had called in their lawyers, who advised that they proceed to work
the mines on the old concession, given them by the Czar. "The concession,"
they explained, "does not expire until January, 1925. That being the case,
it still holds good, even though the government has changed hands, just as
a lease to bore for oil on a certain farm would hold good even though the
farm changed hands."
"Yes," the rich representatives of the Big Five had smiled, "but there is
a royalty of 25 per cent which was to have been paid to the Czar. Now it
should go to the people. But how? To whom should this now be paid?"
At this juncture, Johnny had one of his occasional inspirations.
"Leave that to me," he had exclaimed. "Make me foreman of the enterprise
and every ounce and penny's worth of that royalty will go to relieve the
sufferings of those freezing, starving, and naked refugees I saw pouring
into Vladivostok from the interior by tens of thousands. You appoint one
person and send that person over to assist the Red Cross in distributing
the benefits and I will get the gold down to them, never fear."
"Good!" one of the rich men had exclaimed.
"And, just to show you we're with you, we'll make it 35 per cent."
Now, Johnny remembered all of that. He remembered too how he had picked
his miners, and his crew for the big gasoline schooner which was to bring
them to the scene of their labors, and his two air men who were to man
their emergency transportation--an airplane. He remembered with what high
hopes he had landed on those bleak shores and had taken up the task of
making his men comfortable for the long winter. Only yesterday the housing
work had been completed, and to-day, while the other laborers were going
over the rusted machinery, he had sent his best man, Langlois, into the
most promising looking mine to discover the conditions there. The man had
not returned. After four hours of waiting, he had called to Pant, and
together they had entered the mine. They had found that death had already
broken through their guard.
"Let him lie as he is," Johnny said to his companion. "We will bring in
the doctor and two other men. This is a land without law. There will be no
coroner's inquest. That is all the more reason why we must be careful to
avoid all appearance of foul play. When men are 'on their own' everything
must be done in the open."
Before turning toward the mouth of the mine, he cast one sweeping glance
about the place. Beyond the body there was a pool of water. It was evident
that a warm spring must enter the place near this shallow pool, for the
walls on all sides were white with frost. In the middle of this pool,
driven into the earth was a pick. It was rusty and its handle was slimy
with dampness. Close to the end of the handle were the marks of a man's
fingers where his firm grip had ground off particles of the black rot. It
seemed evident that the pick had lain on the floor of the mine, that
Langlois had taken it up and driven it into the earth which had been
softened by the water. Then death must have come, for he lay not three
feet from the handle of the pick.
"Dead," Johnny whispered to himself as he turned away, "but how?"
Half way to the entrance, Johnny paused, put his hand on his companion's
arm, then stood in the attitude of listening. He seemed to feel rather
than hear an almost undetectable shudder that set the air about them and
the rock beneath their feet to vibrating.
"What is it?" whispered Johnny.
"I don't know," said his companion, and there was a noticeable tremor in
his voice.
They were destined to feel that earth-tremble many times before they
solved the mystery of the mine.