CHAPTER XXIV.CONCLUSION.
“Wake up there, you drunken brutes! Wake up there, and help me guard these boys and this girl!”
Martin Mudd was in a furious rage.
His crack guards were all sound asleep again.
They had brought what was left of the whisky along with them, and it had done its work.
The consequence was that Mudd, who did not dare to move to shake them up, was rather at his wit’s ends to know what to do.
There he stood with a cocked revolver in each hand.
One covered Charley and the other covered Dick.
Clara was screaming out for him not to shoot, and Mudd himself was roaring lustily to his drunken companions, who never even stirred.
Now, if anyone thinks that Dick Darrell and Charley Nicholson were the sort to let such a situation as this last long, they are very greatly mistaken.
In far less time than it has taken to describe said situation the boys brought it to an end.
Both made a rush for Mudd, utterly ignoring the revolvers.
Mudd fired.
The next instant Dick had him by the throat and had wrenched one revolver away, Mudd losing his hold on the other in the struggle which followed, and it fell to the ground.
“Give me those papers! Throw them down, or I’ll fire!” shouted Dick, covering the scoundrel. “I believe on my soul you are the man who killed my father, and——”
“Hold on! Hold on! I’ll do it!” yelled Mudd, in terror.
He thrust his hand into the pocket of his coat, and, drawing out a flat package done up in greasy brown paper, threw it to the ground.
“Oh, Dick, look at Charley! He’s shot!” screamed Clara at the same instant.
Dick foolishly turned his head in answer to this startling cry.
Poor Charley’s face was as white as a sheet; he was slowly sinking down.
Clara sprang to help him, but she was too late; he fell all in a heap, and at the same moment Mudd closed on Dick again.
He got his arm about the boy’s neck, the revolver fell to the ground, but Mudd never stopped to pick it up. He dragged Dick out of the cave—dragged him toward the edge of the precipice on the opposite side of the trail.
“Burn you, Dick Darrell!” he hissed. “You have gone a step too far this time. I did kill your father, and I’ll kill you!”
Bang! Bang!
Two shots suddenly rang out along the trail.
It was Doctor Dan.
He was bare-headed and his long hair was flying in the wind.
Two shots from his rifle went whizzing past Dick and Mudd.
They were not aimed to hit, as Doctor Dan explained afterward. He did not dare to, for fear of hitting Dick.
But Martin Mudd, coward that he was, had no notion of facing the Indian.
He struggled to free himself, and Dick let him go.
“Hold him!” cried Doctor Dan. “Don’t let him escape, Dick, or our troubles will never end!”
It was too late.
Mudd was on the run already.
In his half dazed condition from the whisky he had aboard his steps were somewhat uncertain as he went dashing along the trail.
Suddenly he staggered perilously near the edge of the precipice; the disintegrated rock was not able to bear his weight, and it gave way beneath him.
Throwing up his hands with a frightful yell, Martin Mudd went rolling down into the valley.
With bated breath Dick and Doctor Dan watched him. The end came when with a splash which they could just hear the wretched man dropped into the lake.
Doubtless he was dead before he struck the water, for he never rose again.
“Oh, Doctor! You have saved my life! But poor Charley is a goner!” gasped Dick. “Come—come!”
A horse was pounding furiously down the trail.
“Let’s hope for the best,” replied Doctor Dan. “You thought I was gone, but I was only winded from the terrible pressure of that brute. I knew when you bent over me, Dick, but I couldn’t speak, and—hello! Here’s another one of them. Hold on there! Hold on!”
It was Tony. Down the trail he came dashing furiously.
“Hold up!” he cried. “Don’t shoot. I saw Mudd go down from the heights above here. I’m out of it. There’s a big force coming from the Gold Queen!”
Two weeks later Dick Darrell stepped off of a Pullman car at the B. & O. depot in the city of Washington.
Leaning upon his shoulder was a young man looking pale and interesting, who had evidently been very sick—our old friend Charley, of course.
Behind him came a tall, handsome Indian dressed in ordinary clothes.
Here was our party home again from the Bad Lands, and as their adventures were now all over, we must bring our story to a speedy conclusion.
The arrival of the party from the Gold Queen was the work of Bill Struthers, the treacherous guide, who changed his mind upon arriving at the mine and made a clean breast of the whole affair to Colonel Eglinton, who immediately organized a force to go to his daughter’s relief.
They were too late to deal with Martin Mudd, for the man had gone to his long account and no effort was even made tofind his body. As for the rest, drunken men are easily captured—there was no resistance made at the cave.
Charley was badly wounded, but Doctor Dan extracted the bullet which had entered his side, and the boy was able to hobble back to camp.
The next day with Dick and Doctor Dan he rode to Node ranch, where he lay very ill for a week, but after that began to mend.
Now, so far, we have not said a word about Clara, for that involves an explanation of a painful shock which came to the poor girl.
Colonel Eglinton was not with his men, and for a very good reason.
Just as the party was starting out from the Gold Queen mine Colonel Eglinton fell off his horse and never spoke again.
He was dead—dead of heart disease which had long threatened him, and it was Clara’s sad task to take his body on to Washington for burial.
Dick met her at Node ranch and rendered her every assistance in his power. He wanted to go East with her, but she would no more hear to his leaving Charley then than she would when Dick wanted to go with her to the mine when Tony first communicated his sad news.
When Charley was able to be moved Doctor Dan concluded to go with the boys, and the day following their arrival Dick went to the Smithsonian with the guide and made his report.
Unfortunately, however, they had nothing to show to prove the existence of old P. D., for even the head of the Plesiosaurus which Doctor Dan had found in the underground cavern had been left behind.
Professor Poynter was greatly excited at the report Dick rendered, and we may as well tell the end of the monster business right here.
A new expedition was promptly dispatched to the Bad Lands, with Dick and Doctor Dan in command.
But disappointment awaited them. Something had happened in Dick’s absence. Probably it was an earthquake, but he never knew.
At all events, great masses of rock had fallen down upon the trail, rendering it entirely impassable, and when they tried to get up to Izard Lake by way of the cavern the same state of affairs was found to exist there.
Even the Gold Queen’s trail was cut off and from that day to this no one has ever been able to reach Izard Lake, and access to the mine is had by another way.
Doctor Dan is still working on the problem, and some day he may find a way. When he does the world will doubtless be astonished to find that the prehistoric monster known as the Plesiosaurus still exists.
A few words more and our story is done.
Those papers!
Dick pocketed them when he returned to the cave.
Later he studied them carefully. Later still he showed them to a prominent lawyer in Washington. A week after that the lawyer rendered his report.
“You are unquestionably the owner of the Gold Queen mine,” he said. “I’ll take up your case for you. Nine-tenths of the stock is held by Tom Eglinton’s estate, and his daughter is the sole heir. The mine is yours, young man, and we are sure to win.”
“Thank you,” replied Dick. “Send me your bill and I’ll pay it. There will be no case.”
He took the papers and threw them into the open grate fire before the lawyer could stay his hand.
“You’re a fool, boy!” cried the lawyer, angrily.
“Am I?” replied Dick. “Well, I think not.”
“But——”
“Wait, sir. Let me tell you a secret,” said Dick. “You say Clara Eglinton is the sole heir?”
“She certainly is, under the will.”
“Very well. I am engaged to be married to Miss Clara Eglinton, and she must never know that her father——”
“Oh, well,” interrupted the lawyer, “that’s another matter. It will be all in the family. I take it back, young man—you are not a fool.”
And Dick quite agrees with him now.
To-day Dick is actively engaged in the mining business.
So is Charley—he is superintendent at the Gold Queen.
Dick was married to Clara two years ago, and, of course, he’s given up monster hunting since he went into the mining business.
As for the Smithsonian, they will have to get someone else to look after old P. D., if ever the way is open, for they cannot getDick and Dr. Dan.
[THE END.]