Read Ebook: Nick Carter Stories No. 134 April 3 1915; The Secret of Shangore; Or Nick Carter Among the Spearmen by Carter Nicholas House Name

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 776 lines and 61429 words, and 16 pages

"Anyhow, if they can't, it's none of our business. We are a long way from Madison Avenue, remember. It will take us many weeks to get home, even if we were to start to-night. We shall have to travel nearly half around the world."

Nick Carter was amused at his companion's earnestness. He knew that Chick's advice was given with the very best motives. His assistant would follow him into the very jaws of death--had done so on many occasions. But it seemed to Chick, now that they had finished the job they had come for, that it would be better to get home as quickly as possible.

It was quite true, as he had said, that there would most likely be piles of business on his chief's desk in his Madison Avenue home by this time, and that scores of people would be anxiously awaiting his return.

But Nick Carter believed that he owed it to Jefferson Arnold to help him bring the rascally William Pike to justice, whether the money he had stolen from the Arnold Company's Calcutta office--a hundred thousand dollars--were recovered or not.

Pike had been a trusted employee--the manager of the Indian branch of the great New York house--and he had taken advantage of his position to steal what might be called a fortune.

For the moral effect on others, he should be caught and made to answer for his crime.

Perhaps there was another, and potent, reason for the great detective desiring to penetrate the mysteries of the great Himalayan range that he confessed hardly to himself--his innate love of adventure.

Nick Carter always had been interested in the vast unknown stretches of Asia, and what he had heard of Bolongu, the Land of the Golden Scarab, had been of a nature to make him long to go there.

There was every reason to suppose that William Pike had found his way into this strange country, because Leslie Arnold knew that he himself was on his way there when he managed to escape. Pike had some kind of compact with the natives of Bolongu, and it was to their land he had doubtless gone when his scheme against young Arnold failed.

"Sahib! We must fight!" suddenly boomed a deep voice out of the darkness of the cave in which smoldered the remains of the camp fire. "They come."

The owner of the voice stalked into the red glow of the fire and made a deep salaam to the detective.

"Hello, Jai Singh! Where did you get that news?" asked Nick Carter.

"Jai Singh watches, sahib!" was the grave reply. "The men of the Golden Scarab are far off. But not far enough to hide. They have one of their priests in the rocks across this mountain."

"You mean in Bolongu? I should say there is more than one there," rejoined the detective. "If the stories I have heard are true, hundreds of them are in the Land of the Golden Scarab."

"This priest is much nearer," returned Jai Singh. "He prepares the things required for feasts of the god in Bolongu."

Nick Carter got to his feet and looked at the tall, dignified Hindu in some impatience.

"What the deuce do you mean?" he demanded. "And why should we care for one priest? Where are the men we drove back yesterday?"

Before Jai Singh could speak, there came an answer to Nick Carter's query which could not be mistaken.

It was a concerted howl of hatred and vengeance, which reverberated among the rocks and seemed to be close at hand.

Nick jumped to his feet, his rifle in hand, ready for instant use, as he looked around for the other men of his party.

Jai Singh smiled soberly and shook his head.

"They are not in our camp, nor very near the place we hide," he said. "The sahib can put down his gun for the present."

"I heard them not more than a hundred yards away," insisted Nick Carter.

Again Jai Singh shook his head, while the smile his dark face had worn before crept slowly to the corners of his mouth and into his deep eyes.

"You think you heard them close. That is because the mountain walls carry sounds from a long distance. It was the echo that came to us. The men who shouted are two miles away."

For a moment Nick looked at the tall East Indian as if inclined to contradict him. Then he recollected that he had heard a great deal about these wonderful mountain echoes, and he said nothing.

"It is on the same principle as the whispering galleries of great buildings," he thought. "I have heard whispers from a distance seemingly right in my ear in the Capitol at Washington. Why should I doubt the phenomenon in this wonderful land of strange things?"

"What's the orders, chief?" suddenly broke in Patsy Garvan, whose unquenchable curiosity brought him over when he saw Jai Singh and Nick Carter in conference. "Do we go ahead and clean out those blacks in the mountains, or are we to take a quiet jaunt into the Land of the Golden Pelican, or whatever it is?"

But Patsy had already rushed off to announce joyfully that they were going into action, and he did not hear anything more from his chief.

WHAT THEY FOUND IN THE CAVE.

"The fact that we know the rascals are two miles away makes it unnecessary for us to care about the moonlight," remarked Nick Carter, as, ten minutes afterward he strode along a narrow ledge that wound its way up the mountainside.

"I am glad of it," grunted Jefferson Arnold. "I didn't want to wait for anything."

Nick did not reply. He turned to see that all his little army was coming along, and that all were properly equipped for anything that might happen in the way of fighting.

There were his two assistants, the two Arnolds, Adil, and Jai Singh, with the four coolies, whom he could perhaps be able to depend on in a scrimmage, but who, at all events, were useful to carry most of the baggage.

In addition to all these, there was one member of the party who said nothing, but who was not to be despised in a pinch--the magnificent bloodhound, Captain.

Trained to do police work from his puppyhood, and with a scent that never failed so long as there was anything for him to follow, Captain might still prove himself to be the most valuable individual in the party when it was desirable to follow some slippery and cunning foe.

They were walking along a narrow path of rock, with a towering wall on one side and a seemingly bottomless ca?on on the other. It was such a trail as is often found in the mountainous districts of the Far West of America.

"Be cautious," Nick Carter admonished his followers. "This is the kind of place where there might easily be a guard at intervals, if the Bolongu men know as much about the strategy of warfare as I believe."

"You need not fear, sahib," came from Jai Singh. "They are frightened. They will not attack us till we have got out of this part of the mountains. They shout, but that is all."

"I wish they would show up a little nearer," observed Patsy. "I'm getting as rusty as an old gate for want of a scrap."

"Keep quiet, Patsy!" growled Chick, by his side. "You'll get all the fighting you want before this trip is over--perhaps a little more. What's this cave just in front of us, I wonder? I see several of them."

"They have been used by outposts," volunteered Jai Singh. "See! Here is a rusted spear head. It has been here for years, from the look of it. But it shows that sentries have used these caves at some time."

"There always have been fights in this part of the country, I should say," remarked Nick Carter. "Is that a flight of steps I see yonder?"

"Yes, sahib."

"How far is it away?"

"Three miles."

"It does not look so far," declared Nick. "Don't you think you are stretching it, Jai Singh?"

"It may be a little nearer as the eagle flies," replied the Hindu. "But the trail is even more than three miles."

"Gee! This is more like a Marathon than a healthy scrap," grumbled Patsy. "He talks about three miles as easily as if it were only three feet. This kind of stunt might fit a letter carrier from the Bronx. But I wish we had horses or a motor car."

Patsy Garvan liked to complain in this way. It was exercise for his tongue and gave his lively mind something to do. His discontent was only skin-deep, however. He did not mean anything, and Nick Carter, who overheard, smiled in amusement.

The path became narrower, so that only one person could walk at a time, and even then with the greatest of care. Then again it widened out, with room for three men abreast without being crowded.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet