Transcriber’s Notes:
The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained,
with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
Text in Italics is indicated between _underscores_.
Text in small capitals has been replaced by regular uppercase text.
* * * * *
NICK CARTER STORIES
New Magnet Library
Not a Dull Book in This List
Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that
the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the
work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no
other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of
new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from
all sorts of troubles and landed the criminal just where he should
be—behind the bars.
The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories
than any other single person.
Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been
selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of
them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth
covers which sells at ten times the price.
If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet
Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
850—Wanted: A Clew By Nicholas Carter
851—A Tangled Skein By Nicholas Carter
852—The Bullion Mystery By Nicholas Carter
853—The Man of Riddles By Nicholas Carter
854—A Miscarriage of Justice By Nicholas Carter
855—The Gloved Hand By Nicholas Carter
856—Spoilers and the Spoils By Nicholas Carter
857—The Deeper Game By Nicholas Carter
858—Bolts from Blue Skies By Nicholas Carter
859—Unseen Foes By Nicholas Carter
860—Knaves in High Places By Nicholas Carter
861—The Microbe of Crime By Nicholas Carter
862—In the Toils of Fear By Nicholas Carter
863—A Heritage of Trouble By Nicholas Carter
864—Called to Account By Nicholas Carter
865—The Just and the Unjust By Nicholas Carter
866—Instinct at Fault By Nicholas Carter
867—A Rogue Worth Trapping By Nicholas Carter
868—A Rope of Slender Threads By Nicholas Carter
869—The Last Call By Nicholas Carter
870—The Spoils of Chance By Nicholas Carter
871—A Struggle With Destiny By Nicholas Carter
872—The Slave of Crime By Nicholas Carter
873—The Crook’s Blind By Nicholas Carter
874—A Rascal of Quality By Nicholas Carter
875—With Shackles of Fire By Nicholas Carter
876—The Man Who Changed Faces By Nicholas Carter
877—The Fixed Alibi By Nicholas Carter
878—Out With the Tide By Nicholas Carter
879—The Soul Destroyers By Nicholas Carter
880—The Wages of Rascality By Nicholas Carter
881—Birds of Prey By Nicholas Carter
882—When Destruction Threatens By Nicholas Carter
883—The Keeper of Black Hounds By Nicholas Carter
884—The Door of Doubt By Nicholas Carter
885—The Wolf Within By Nicholas Carter
886—A Perilous Parole By Nicholas Carter
887—The Trail of the Finger Prints By Nicholas Carter
888—Dodging the Law By Nicholas Carter
889—A Crime in Paradise By Nicholas Carter
890—On the Ragged Edge By Nicholas Carter
891—The Red God of Tragedy By Nicholas Carter
892—The Man Who Paid By Nicholas Carter
893—The Blind Man’s Daughter By Nicholas Carter
894—One Object in Life By Nicholas Carter
895—As a Crook Sows By Nicholas Carter
896—In Record Time By Nicholas Carter
897—Held in Suspense By Nicholas Carter
898—The $100,000 Kiss By Nicholas Carter
899—Just One Slip By Nicholas Carter
900—On a Million-dollar Trail By Nicholas Carter
901—A Weird Treasure By Nicholas Carter
902—The Middle Link By Nicholas Carter
903—To the Ends of the Earth By Nicholas Carter
904—When Honors Pall By Nicholas Carter
905—The Yellow Brand By Nicholas Carter
906—A New Serpent in Eden By Nicholas Carter
907—When Brave Men Tremble By Nicholas Carter
908—A Test of Courage By Nicholas Carter
909—Where Peril Beckons By Nicholas Carter
910—The Gargoni Girdle By Nicholas Carter
911—Rascals & Co. By Nicholas Carter
912—Too Late to Talk By Nicholas Carter
913—Satan’s Apt Pupil By Nicholas Carter
914—The Girl Prisoner By Nicholas Carter
915—The Danger of Folly By Nicholas Carter
916—One Shipwreck Too Many By Nicholas Carter
917—Scourged by Fear By Nicholas Carter
918—The Red Plague By Nicholas Carter
919—Scoundrels Rampant By Nicholas Carter
920—From Clew to Clew By Nicholas Carter
921—When Rogues Conspire By Nicholas Carter
922—Twelve in a Grave By Nicholas Carter
923—The Great Opium Case By Nicholas Carter
924—A Conspiracy of Rumors By Nicholas Carter
925—A Klondike Claim By Nicholas Carter
926—The Evil Formula By Nicholas Carter
927—The Man of Many Faces By Nicholas Carter
928—The Great Enigma By Nicholas Carter
929—The Burden of Proof By Nicholas Carter
930—The Stolen Brain By Nicholas Carter
931—A Titled Counterfeiter By Nicholas Carter
932—The Magic Necklace By Nicholas Carter
933—’Round the World for a Quarter By Nicholas Carter
934—Over the Edge of the World By Nicholas Carter
935—In the Grip of Fate By Nicholas Carter
936—The Case of Many Clews By Nicholas Carter
937—The Sealed Door By Nicholas Carter
938—Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men By Nicholas Carter
939—The Man Without a Will By Nicholas Carter
940—Tracked Across the Atlantic By Nicholas Carter
941—A Clew From the Unknown By Nicholas Carter
942—The Crime of a Countess By Nicholas Carter
943—A Mixed Up Mess By Nicholas Carter
944—The Great Money Order Swindle By Nicholas Carter
945—The Adder’s Brood By Nicholas Carter
946—A Wall Street Haul By Nicholas Carter
947—For a Pawned Crown By Nicholas Carter
A BROKEN BOND
OR,
THE MAN WITHOUT MORALS
BY
NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures, which
are published exclusively in the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY, conceded
to be among the best detective tales ever written.
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1917
By Street & Smith Corporation
A Broken Bond
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
A BROKEN BOND.
CHAPTER I.
A SHOT FROM AMBUSH.
Behind a big rock which looked down over the wide, straggling road that
ran upward through the mountains crouched a long, lean figure. Snuggled
against his right shoulder was a rifle, and the bearded face beneath
the broad-brimmed panama was turned toward the roadway below. The hot
sun beat down remorselessly, and its blinding rays were reflected from
the rocks. Perspiration poured down the man’s face, and now and then
he moved impatiently to brush away some buzzing insect. His head was
raised slightly above the level of the rock, and from his point of
vantage a splendid panorama spread out beneath him.
To his left lay the mountains, blue, remote, and full of rugged dignity
all their own. To his right, a fertile South American valley revealed
itself in the shimmering distance. Occasionally, as a light puff of
wind came up from the lowlands, it brought with it the dull, heavy
noise of an engine at work.
Half an hour passed, and then the first sign of life was revealed in
the roadway below. There appeared round a bend a long line of mules,
each of them burdened with two big packs. In front of the train of
mules walked a white man clad in dingy overalls.
The figure crouching behind the rock moved slightly and seemed to grow
tense and expectant, while the eyes in the bearded face glinted as they
peered down at the road.
Nothing happened, however. The mules plodded on, with their leader
striding away ahead of them, and the lonely sentinel watched them until
they had passed down the road and had vanished below the level of the
rise which led them on to the plains.
“He ought to be coming soon now.”
The man spoke aloud, and there was a curious, metallic sound in his
rasping voice.
Ten minutes passed, and then the clear, drumming sound of a horse’s
hoofs came to him, and presently around the same jagged spur there
appeared the figure of a man on horseback. He was riding along at a
good pace, but the reins were lying loosely across the horse’s neck,
and the animal was picking its way unguided down the rough surface of
the road. Evidently it was on a familiar trail.
At the sight, the lurking figure grew tenser still, and the sound of
a low growl, almost animal-like in character, might have been heard.
Slowly the rifle was nestled closer to the shoulder. The panama hat,
being too conspicuous, was pulled off and dropped behind him, after
which the bare, rather bald head was lowered until the right cheek
touched the stock of the gun. The left eye was closed, and the right
sighted along the barrel, which at the same time was shifted, following
the man on horseback.
A few moments passed, during which the down-pointed muzzle shifted like
a spy-glass, following the moving object. Then——
Crack! Into the still air a blue puff of smoke rose and hung for a
moment above the rock. The drone of the bullet sounded clearly down the
edge of the slope as the deadly missile hurled itself toward its mark.
A quick cry came up from the roadway, and the weapon was stealthily
withdrawn.
Quickly, however, the man behind the rock peered down, but when he did
so he saw that blind chance had stepped in and thwarted him. The horse
had apparently stumbled on a loose rock just as the shot was fired, and
had reared back slightly to recover its footing; therefore, it was into
the animal’s soft, rounded neck that the heavy bullet had bored its
way, and not into the more precious target at which it had been aimed.
The creature was now lying in the roadway, and the convulsive movements
of its limbs could be seen dimly through the little cloud of dust which
had been raised by its fall.
The man on the horse’s back had been hurled in a heap by the side of
the road, but as his would-be murderer watched, he saw him rise to
his feet and stare up in the general direction of the rock from which
the shot had been fired. Warned by that movement, the skulker swiftly
jerked his head back and crouched still lower in his place.
“Curse him!” the hard voice grated. “He always has the fiend’s own
luck!”
Grasping his rifle and hat, but still keeping on hands and knees, he
began instinctively to crawl away under cover of the rock. He had gone
no more than a yard, though, before he paused irresolutely and his
fingers sought his belt.
There were other bullets in that belt, but the man’s failure had
unnerved him, and a certain fatalistic instinct told him that he was
not likely to succeed in a second attempt, now that the first had come
to naught. The figure in the road would be on its guard now, and if
another shot missed its mark, the point from which it had been fired
would almost certainly be located. From that would only be a step to
the discovery of the shooter’s identity, and the latter did not care
to contemplate such a possibility. Consequently, with a snakelike
movement, the lean figure resumed its progress away from the rocks,
and presently, having reached the protection of large bowlders,
straightened up a little more and increased its pace.
The fugitive knew that the man he had tried to kill was more than
usually fond of the dying horse, and would probably delay at its side
for a precious minute or two before attempting to solve the mystery of
the shot. That delay promised to enable him to make good his escape,
and he was resolved to take every possible advantage of it. For
perhaps fifteen minutes he doubled and twisted, now ascending and now
descending the foothills. At the end of that time he had reached the
road again, and, watching his chance, dodged across it. This latest
move brought him into thick woods, through which he hurriedly threaded
his way in the direction of the valley.
He hid his rifle in a hollow tree, and when he reached the little
mining camp he had cunningly concealed all evidence of agitation or
guilt.
The knowledge of the act was not destined to remain locked in his own
breast, however, as he was soon to learn. At his destination, the
Condor Mine, he found Charlie Floyd, the mine’s physician, waiting for
him, and wearing a very stern expression.
“I have something important to say to you, Mr. Stone,” the young doctor
said grimly, and led the way to a spot where they were out of earshot.
“What’s up?” demanded Stone, who was one of the two original owners of
the mine. He and his partner, Winthrop Crawford, had only recently sold
out for a cool million.
“Much,” was the grave answer. “I happened to be roaming about in the
foothills back there a little while ago, and I saw you take that pot
shot at Mr. Crawford.”
“What are you raving about?” growled Stone, with the greatest apparent
surprise.
“I’m not raving at all, Mr. Stone. I always carry field glasses on my
walks, as you know, and, being startled by the shot, I looked in that
direction, saw the puff of smoke from behind the rock, and leveled
my glasses on the spot. I saw you when you looked down to see if the
bullet had done its work; saw you as plainly as if you had been not
more than ten feet away. There’s no possibility of a mistake. I was
in a position to watch your movements afterward, and saw you sneaking
away. I recognized your hat, too.”
Stone had wilted at first when the field glasses were mentioned, but
now he seemed to have plucked up fresh courage, and even assumed a
defiant attitude.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he demanded. “One or the
other of us will have to kick the bucket sooner or later. Crawford has
it in for me, and I only acted in self-defense. If I don’t get him
first, he’ll get me as sure as fate.”
The young physician looked at him searchingly, but there was much more
of pity than condemnation in his glance.
“You needn’t be afraid that I’m going to give you up to justice, Mr.
Stone,” he said, after a pause. “You’ll resent it, of course, but I’m
pretty sure that you’re not responsible for your actions. I hold your
liberty, if not your life, in my hands, though, and I’m going to name a
condition in return for my silence.”