Frank Merriwell's Triumph: or, The Disappearance of Felicia

CHAPTER I.

A COMPACT OF RASCALS

They were dangerous-looking men, thirty of them in all, armed to the teeth. They looked like unscrupulous fellows who would hesitate at no desperate deed. Some of them had bad records, and yet they had served Frank Merriwell faithfully in guarding his mine, the Queen Mystery, against those who tried to wrest it from him by force and fraud.

Frank had called these men together, and he now stood on his doorstep in Mystery Valley, Arizona, looking them over. Bart Hodge, Frank’s college chum and companion in many adventures, was behind him in the doorway. Little Abe, a hunchback boy whom Merriwell had rescued from ruffians at a mining camp and befriended for some time, peered from the cabin. Merry smiled pleasantly as he surveyed the men.

“Well, boys,” he said, “the time has come when I shall need your services no longer.”

Some of them stirred restlessly and looked regretful.

“To tell you the truth,” Frank went on, “I am genuinely sorry to part with you. You have served me well. But I need you no more. My enemies have been defeated, and the courts have recognized my rightful claim to this property. You fought for me when it was necessary. You risked your lives for me.”

“That’s what we is paid for, Mr. Merriwell,” said Tombstone Phil, the leader. “We tries to earn our money.”

“You have earned it, every one of you. I remember the day we stood off a hundred painted ruffians in the desert; I remember the hunting of Jim Rednight; and I don’t forget that when Hodge and I stood beneath a tree near Phœnix, with ropes about our necks, that you charged to the rescue and saved us. Have I paid you in a satisfactory manner?”

“Sure thing!”

“You bet!”

“That’s whatever!”

“You don’t hear us kick any!”

“We’re satisfied!”

These exclamations were uttered by various men in the gathering.

“I am glad to know, boys,” declared Frank, “that you are all satisfied. If you must leave me, I like to have you leave feeling that you have been treated on the square.”

“Mr. Merriwell,” said Mexican Bob, a wizened little man, “I ken chew up the galoot what says you ain’t plumb on the level. Thar’s nary a critter in the bunch whatever makes a murmur about you.”

“You can see, boys,” Frank went on, “that I have no further use for you as a guard to my property. If any of you wish to remain, however, I shall try to find employment for you. There’s work enough to be done here, although it may not be the sort of work you care to touch. I need more men in the mine. You know the wages paid. It’s hard work and may not be satisfactory to any of you.”

The men were silent.

“As we are parting,” Merry added, “I wish to show my appreciation of you in a manner that will be satisfactory to you all. For that purpose I have something to distribute among you. Hand them out, Hodge.”

Bart stepped back and reappeared some moments later loaded down with a lot of small canvas pouches.

“Come up one at a time, boys,” invited Merry, as he began taking these from Bart. “Here you are, Phil.”

He dropped the first pouch into Tombstone Phil’s hand, and it gave forth a musical, clinking sound that made the eyes of the men sparkle.

One by one they filed past the doorstep, and into each outstretched hand was dropped a clinking canvas pouch, each one of which was heavy enough to make its recipient smile.

When the last man had received his present, they gathered again in front of the door, and suddenly Tombstone Phil roared:

“Give up a youp, boys, for the whitest man on two legs, Frank Merriwell!”

They swung their hats in the air and uttered a yell that awoke the echoes of the valley.

“Thanks, men,” said Merry quietly. “I appreciate that. As long as you desire to remain in Mystery Valley you are at liberty to do so; when you wish to depart you can do so, also. So-long, boys. Good luck to you.”

He waved his hand, and they answered with another sharp yell. Then they turned and moved away, declaring over and over among themselves that he was the “whitest man.” One of those who repeated this assertion a number of times was a leathery, bowlegged, bewhiskered individual in greasy garments known as Hull Shawmut. If anything, Shawmut seemed more pleased and satisfied than his companions.

The only one who said nothing at all was Kip Henry, known as “the Roper,” on account of his skill in throwing the lariat. Henry was thin, supple, with a small black mustache, and in his appearance was somewhat dandified, taking great satisfaction in bright colors and in fanciful Mexican garments. He wore a peaked Mexican hat, and his trousers were slit at the bottom, Mexican style. Several times Shawmut glanced at Henry, noting his lack of enthusiasm. When the Thirty retired to their camp down the valley and lingered there, Henry sat apart by himself, rolling and smoking a cigarette and frowning at the ground.

“What’s the matter, pard?” asked Shawmut, clapping him on the shoulder. “Didn’t yer git yer little present?”

“Yes, I got it,” nodded the Roper.

“Then what’s eating of yer?”

“Well, Shawmut, I am a whole lot sorry this yere job is ended. That’s what’s the matter. It certain was a snap.”

“That’s right,” agreed Kip, sitting down near the other. “We gits good pay for our time, and we works none to speak of. It certain was a snap. Howsomever, such snaps can’t last always, partner. Do you opine we’ve got any kick coming?”

“The only thing I was a-thinking of,” answered Kip, “is that here we fights to keep this yere mine for him, we takes chances o’ being called outlaws, and – now the job is done – we gits dropped. You knows and I knows that this yere mine is a mighty rich one. Why don’t we have the luck to locate a mine like that? Why should luck always come to other galoots?”

“I ain’t explaining that none,” confessed Shawmut, as he filled his pipe. “Luck is a heap singular. One night I bucks Jimmy Clerg’s bank down in Tucson. I never has much luck hitting the tiger, nohow. This night things run just the same. I peddles and peddles till I gits down to my last yeller boy. If I loses that I am broke. I has a good hoss and outfit, and so I says, ‘Here goes.’ Well, she does go. Jim’s dealer he rakes her in. I sets thar busted wide. When I goes into that place I has eight hundred in my clothes. In less than an hour I has nothing.

“Clerg he comes ambling along a-looking the tables over. I sees him, and I says: ‘Jim, how much you let me have on my hoss and outfit?’ ‘What’s it wurth?’ says he. ‘Three hundred, cold,’ says I. ‘That goes,’ says he. And he lets me have the coin. Then I tackles the bank again, and I keeps right on peddling. Yes, sir, I gits down once more to my last coin. This is where I walks out of the saloon on my uppers. All the same, I bets the last red. I wins. Right there, Kip, my luck turns. Arter that it didn’t seem I could lose nohow. Pretty soon I has all the chips stacked up in front of me. I cashes in once or twice and keeps right on pushing her. I knows luck is with me, and I takes all kinds o’ long chances. Well, pard, when I ambles out of the place at daylight the bank is busted and I has all the ready coin of the joint. That’s the way luck works. You gits it in the neck a long time; but bimeby, when she turns, she just pours in on yer.”

“But it don’t seem any to me that my luck is going to turn,” muttered the Roper.

“Mebbe you takes a little walk with me,” said Shawmut significantly. “Mebbe I tells you something some interesting.”

They arose and walked away from the others, so that their talk might not be heard.

“Did you ever hear of Benson Clark?” asked Shawmut.

“Clark? Clark? Why, I dunno. Seems ter me I hears o’ him.”

“I knows him well once. He was a grubstaker. But his is hard luck and a-plenty of it. All the same, he keeps right on thinking sure that luck changes for him. Something like two years ago I loses track of him. I never sees him any since. But old Bense he hits it rich at last. Somewhere in the Mazatzals he located a claim what opens rich as mud. Some Indians off their reservation finds him there, and he has to run for it. He gits out of the mountains, but they cuts him off and shoots him up. His luck don’t do him no good, for he croaks. But right here is where another lucky gent comes in. This other gent he happens along and finds old Bense, and Bense he tells him about the mine and gives him a map. Now, this other lucky gent he proposes to go and locate that mine. He proposes to do this, though right now he owns two of the best mines in the whole country. Mebbe you guesses who I’m talking about.”

“Why,” exclaimed Henry, “you don’t mean Mr. Merriwell, do yer?”

“Mebbe I does,” answered Shawmut, glancing at his companion slantwise. “Now, what do yer think of that?”

“What do I think of it?” muttered the Roper. “Well, I will tell yer. I think it’s rotten that all the luck is to come to one gent. I think Mr. Merriwell has a-plenty and he can do without another mine.”

“Just what I thinks,” agreed Shawmut. “I figgers it out that way myself. But he has a map, and that shows him where to find old Bense’s claim.”

“See here,” said Kip, stopping short, “how do you happen to know so much about this?”

“Well, mebbe I listens around some; mebbe I harks a little; mebbe I finds it out that way.”

“I see,” said Henry, in surprise; “but I never thinks it o’ you. You seem so satisfied-like I reckons you don’t bother any.”

“Mebbe I plays my cards slick and proper,” chuckled Shawmut. “You sees I don’t care to be suspected now.”

“What do you propose to do?”

“Well, partner, if I tells you, does you opine you’re ready to stick by me?”

“Share even and I am ready for anything,” was the assurance.

“Mr. Merriwell he proposes hiking out soon to locate that thar claim o’ Benson Clark’s. I am none in a hurry about getting away from here, so I lingers. When he hikes I follers. When he locates the claim mebbe he has to leave it; mebbe I jump it; mebbe I gits it recorded first. If he don’t suspect me any, if he don’t know I’m arter it, he don’t hurry any about having it recorded. That gives me time to get ahead of him. If you’re with me in this, we goes even on the claim. It’s a heap resky, for this yere Merriwell is dangerous to deal with. Is it settled?”

“Yere’s my hand,” said Kip Henry.

Shawmut clasped the proffered hand, and the compact was made.

CHAPTER II.

DAYS OF RETRIBUTION

When Merry had dismissed the men, he turned back into the cabin and sat down near the table.

“Well, that’s the end of that business, Bart,” he said.

“Yes,” nodded Hodge, sitting opposite. “I congratulate you on the way you handled those men, Merry. No one else could have done it as well. If ever I saw a collection of land pirates, it was that bunch.”

Frank smiled.

“They were a pretty tough set,” he confessed; “but they were just the men I needed to match the ruffians Sukes set against me.”

Milton Sukes was the chief conspirator against Frank in the schemes to deprive him of the Queen Mystery Mine.

“Sukes will hire no more ruffians,” said Hodge.

“I should say not. He has perpetrated his last piece of villainy. He has gone before the judgment bar on high.”

“And the last poor wretch he deluded is an imbecile.”

“Poor Worthington!” said Merry. “I fear he will never be right again. It was his bullet that destroyed Sukes, yet no man can prove it. What he suffered after that during his flight into the desert, where he nearly perished for water, completely turned his brain.”

“You want to look out for him, Frank. I think he is dangerous.”

Merry laughed.

“Ridiculous, Hodge! He is as harmless as a child. When I let him, he follows me about like a dog.”

Even as Frank said this, a crouching figure came creeping to the door and peered in. It was a man with unshaven, haggard face and eyes from which the light of reason had fled.

“There he is!” exclaimed this man. “There is my ghost! Do you want me, ghost?”

“Come in, Worthington!” called Frank.

The man entered hesitatingly and stood near the table, never taking his eyes from Merry’s face for a moment.

“What you command, ghost, I must obey,” he said. “You own me, body and soul. Ha! ha! body and soul! But I have no soul! I bartered it with a wretch who deceived me! I was an honest man before that! Perhaps you don’t believe me, but I swear I was. You must believe me! It’s a terrible thing to be owned by a ghost who has no confidence in you. But why should my ghost have confidence! Didn’t I deceive him? Didn’t I kill him? I see it now. I see the fire! It is burning – it is burning there! He has found me as I am setting it. He springs upon me! He is strong – so strong! Ha! his feet slip! Down he goes! His head strikes! He is unconscious!”

The wretch seemed living over the terrible experiences through which he had passed on a certain night in Denver, when he set fire to Merriwell’s office and tried to burn Frank to death. He thought he had accomplished his purpose, and the appearance of his intended victim alive had turned his brain.

As he listened Hodge shivered a little.

“Never mind, Worthington,” said Frank. “He is all right. He will escape from the fire.”

“No, no, no!” gasped the man, wringing his hands. “See him lying there! See the fire flashing on his face! See the smoke! It is coming thick. I must go! I must leave him. It is a fearful thing to do! But if he escapes he will destroy me. He will send me to prison, and I must leave him to die!”

He covered his eyes with his hands, as if to shut out a terrible spectacle.

“No one sees me!” he whispered. “Here are the stairs! It is all dark – all dark! I must get out quick, before the fire is discovered. I have done it! I am on the street! I mustn’t run! If I run they will suspect me. I will walk fast – walk fast!”

Merry glanced at Hodge and sadly shook his head.

“Now the engines are coming!” exclaimed the deranged man. “Hear them as they clang and roar along the streets! See the people run! See the horses galloping! They are coming to try to put out the fire. What if they do it in time to save him! Then he will tell them of my treachery! Then he will send me to prison! I must see – I must know! I must go back there!”

“He shall not send you to prison, Worthington,” asserted Merry soothingly. “He shall be merciful to you.”

“Why should he? Here is the burning building. Here are the engines, panting and throbbing. See! they pour streams of water on the building. No use! It is too late; you cannot save him. He is dead long before this. Who shall say I was to blame? What if they do find his charred body? No man can prove I had a hand in it. I defy you to prove it!”

Shaking his trembling hands in the air, the wretch almost shrieked these words.

“This,” muttered Bart Hodge, “is retribution.”

“I must go away,” whispered Worthington. “I must hide where they can’t see me. Look how every one stares at me! They seem to know I have done it! These infernal lights betray me! I must hide in the darkness. Some one is following me everywhere. I am afraid of the darkness! I will always be afraid of the darkness! In the darkness or in the light, there is no rest for me – no rest! Did you hear that voice? Do you hear? It accuses me of murder! I am haunted! My God! Haunted, haunted!”

With this heartbroken cry he sank on his knees and crept toward Frank.

“You’re the ghost that haunts me!” he exclaimed. “It is my punishment! I must always be near you, and you must haunt me forever!”

Merry touched him gently.

“Get up, Worthington,” he said regretfully. “Your punishment has been too much. Look at me. Look me straight in the eyes, Worthington. I am not dead. You didn’t kill me.”

“No use to tell me that; I know better.”

“It is hopeless now, Hodge,” said Merry, in a low tone. “The only chance for him is that time will restore his reason. You may go, Worthington.”

“I must stay near by, mustn’t I?”

“You may stay outside.”

With bowed head and unsteady steps the man left the cabin and disappeared.

Little Abe had remained speechless and frightened in a corner. Now he picked up his fiddle, and suddenly from it came a weird melody. It was a crazy tune, filled with wild fancies and ghostly phantoms.

“He is playing the music of that deranged soul,” murmured Frank.

The sound of the fiddle died in a wail, and the boy sat shivering and silent in the corner.

“This is a little too much of a ghostly thing!” exclaimed Merry as he arose and shook himself. “Let’s talk of something else, Hodge. To-morrow we start for the Mazatzals, and I have everything ready. If we can locate that mine, one-half of it is yours.”

He took from his pocket a leather case and removed from it a torn and soiled map, which he spread on the table. Together he and Bart examined the map once more, as they had done many times before.

“There,” said Frank, “is Clear Creek, running down into the Rio Verde. Somewhere to the northwest of Hawley Peak, as this fellow indicated here on the map, in the valley shown by this cross, is Benson Clark’s claim.”

“The location is vaguely marked,” said Bart. “We may search for it a year without discovering it.”

“That’s true; but we know approximately somewhere near where it is.”

“Well,” said Hodge, “we will do our best. That’s all any one can do. It is your fortune, Frank, to be lucky; and for that reason we may be successful.”

“Something tells me we shall be,” nodded Merriwell.

The start was made next day, and the journey continued until one afternoon Merry and Bart Hodge stood looking down into a deep, oblong valley in the heart of the Northern Mazatzals. With them was Cap’n Walter Wiley, a former seafaring man, who had been Frank’s friend in many thrilling adventures in the West. Little Abe had come with them from Mystery Valley, as had Worthington, but they were at the camp Merry had established some distance behind.

“I believe this valley is the one,” Merry declared; “but how are we going to get into it? That’s the question that bothers me.”

“There must be an inlet or outlet or something to the old valley,” said Hodge. “It cannot be just a sink hole dropped down here like a huge oval basin in the mountains. There is a stream running through it, too. It is wooded and watered, and there is plenty of grass for grazing.”

“I am almost positive this valley is the one Benson Clark told me of. I am almost positive it is the one marked on my map. Clark was shot and dying when I found him. He didn’t have time to tell me how to get into the valley.”

“We seem to have struck something that impedes navigation and investigation and causes agitation,” put in Cap’n Wiley. “I would truly love to have the wings of a dove that I could fly from these heights above. Poetry just bubbles from me occasionally. I must set my colossal intellect at work on this perplexing problem and demonstrate my astounding ability to solve entangling enigmas. (Webster’s Dictionary does contain the loveliest words!) Let me think a thought. Let all nature stand hushed and silent while I thunk a think.”

His companions paid little heed to him; but he continued to discuss the problem of descending into the valley.

“I have visited the northern end and the southern end,” said Frank, “and I have explored this side and surveyed the other side through my field glasses. There seems no break in these perpendicular walls. This valley seems like one of those Southwestern mesas inverted. They rise sheer from the plains, and it is impossible to reach the top of many of them. This drops straight down here, and it seems impossible to reach its bottom.”

“The more difficult it is,” said Bart, “the greater becomes my desire to get down there.”

“Same here,” smiled Frank. “The difficulty makes it something of a mystery. Scientific expeditions have spent thousands of dollars in reaching the top of the Mesa Encantada, in New Mexico. By Americans it is called the Enchanted Mesa. Now, the mere fact that we can’t seem to get down into this valley throws an atmosphere of mystery over it, and to me it is an enchanted valley.”

“Hush!” whispered Wiley, with one finger pressed against his forehead. “A mighty thought is throbbing and seething in my cohesive brain. If I only had my gravity destroyer here! Ha! Then I could simply jump down into the valley and look around, and, when I got ready, jump back up here. By the way, mates, did you ever know why it was that Santos-Dumont retired from this country in confusion and dismay? You know he came over here with his old flying machine, and was going to do stunts to amaze the gaping multitudes. You know he suddenly packed his Kenebecca and took passage to foreign shores. The secret of his sudden departure has never been told. If you will promise to whisper no word of it to the world, I will reveal the truth to you.

“Just before Santy arrived in the United States I succeeded in perfecting my great gravity destroyer. As I have on other occasions explained to you, it was about the size of an ordinary watch, and I carried it about in my pocket. By pressing a certain spring I immediately destroyed the force of gravity so that, by giving an easy, gentle sort of a jump into the air, I could sail right up to the top of a church steeple. When I got ready to come down, I just let go and sailed down lightly as a feather. When I heard that Santy was going to amaze this country with his dinky old flying machine, I resolved to have a little harmless amusement with him.

“With this object in view, I had a flying machine of my own invented. It was made of canvas stretched over a light wooden frame, and along the bottom, to keep it upright, I had a keel of lead. My means of expulsion was a huge paddle wheel that I could work with my feet. That was the only thing about the machine that I didn’t like. There was some work connected with it. To the rear end of the arrangement I attached a huge fanlike rudder that I could operate with ropes running to the cross pieces, like on ordinary rowboats.

“Mates, there never was a truer word spoken from the chest than that the prophet is not without honor save in his own country. I had this flying machine of mine constructed in Cap’n Bean’s shipyard, down in Camden, Maine, my home. The villagers turned out in swarms, and stood around, and nudged each other in the ribs, and stared at my contrivance, and tried to josh me. Even Billy Murphy gave me a loud and gleeful ha-ha! They seemed to think I had gone daffy, but I kept right on about my business, and one day the Snowbird, as I called her, was finished. She was a beauty, mates, as she lay there, looking so light and airy and fragile.

“By that time I had become decidedly hot under the collar on account of so much chaffing from the rustic populace. Says I to myself, says I: ‘Cap’n, these Rubes don’t deserve to see you fly. If you let them see you fly you will be giving every mother’s son of them two dollars’ worth of entertainment free of charge.’ Now, it isn’t my custom to give anything free of charge. Therefore I advertised in the Herald that on a certain day I would sail the aërial atmosphere. I stated that before doing so I would pass around the hat, and I expected every person present to drop two dollars into it. I thought this was a clever idea of mine.

“On the day and date the people came from near and far. They journeyed even from Hogansville, South Hope, and Stickney’s Corner. When I saw them massed in one great multitude in and around that shipyard and on the steamboat wharf, I made merry cachinnation.

“But alas! when I passed through that crowd with my hat and counted up the collection, I found I had a lead nickel, a trousers button, and a peppermint lozenger. That was all those measly, close-fisted people donated for the pleasure of seeing me navigate the ambient air. Although I am not inclined to be over-sensitive, I felt hurt, and pained, and disappointed. I then made a little speech to them, and informed them that over in Searsmont there was a man so mean that he used a wart on the back of his neck for a collar button to save the expense of buying one, but I considered him the soul of generosity beside them. I further informed them that I had postponed sailing. I minded it not that they guffawed and heaped derision upon me. I was resolute and unbending, and they were forced to leave without seeing me hoist anchor that day.