Panther Eye.

by Roy J. Snell.

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 surpa.s.sed 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 gla.s.ses 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 quant.i.ties 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 j.a.panese 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 a.s.sist 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 sh.o.r.es 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 att.i.tude 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.

CHAPTER II

"FIFTEEN MEN ON THE DEAD MAN'S CHEST"

The two men who, with the young doctor, accompanied Johnny and Pant back to the mine were old friends of other days, David Tower and Jarvis, one-time skipper and engineer of the submarine in that remarkable race beneath the ice and through the air told about in our second book, "Lost in the Air." Like all worthy seamen, they had found that money "burned holes in their pockets," and before six months had pa.s.sed their share of the prize money had dwindled to such a meager sum that the fitting out of a private expedition to go north in search of the fabled City of Gold, the gleam of whose domes they had glimpsed, was not to be thought of. When, therefore, they had discovered that men were being signed for a trip to Arctic Russia with the well-known feather-weight champion boxer, Johnny Thompson, at its head, they hastened to put their names on the "dotted line." And here they were, two of Johnny's most valued men.

Both worked hard at the labor entrusted to them. But ever and again, as he straightened up to ease his cramped back, Jarvis would whisper to Dave:

"It's all right this 'ere Seven Mines, but, man, think how rich we'll be when we git to that City of Gold. I 'ates to think how rich we'll be.

We'll buy reindeer or dogs from the b.l.o.o.d.y, bloomin' 'eathen and we'll trim our sails for the nor'west when this hexpedition's blowed up and gone."

Dave had always smiled and hoped.

But now, there lay before them a sad task. One of their comrades, a fine young college fellow with all of life before him, had been "b.u.mped off."

It was their duty to determine, if possible, who was responsible for this tragedy, and, if occasion seemed to warrant, to avenge it.