Dick and Dr. Dan; Or, the boy monster hunters of the Bad Lands
Date: 2022-08-06T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; Plesiosaurus -- Juvenile fiction; Badlands (S.D. and Neb.) -- Juvenile fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dick and Dr. Dan; Or, the boy monster hunters of the Bad Lands

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Title: Dick and Dr. Dan; Or, the boy monster hunters of the Bad Lands

Author: C. Little

Release date: August 6, 2022 [eBook #68698]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Frank Tousey, 1900

Credits: Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK AND DR. DAN; OR, THE BOY MONSTER HUNTERS OF THE BAD LANDS ***

Transcriber’s Notes:

This novel was serialized in the Happy Days story paper from March 17-May 3, 1900 (issues 283-290), and it does not appear to have ever been published in book form.

The cover image was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

CONTENTS

Chapter I. A Mysterious Affair.

Chapter II. Another Mystery of a Different Sort.

Chapter III. About the Strange Head That Came Over the Rocks.

Chapter IV. Charley in Close Quarters.

Chapter V. The Dream That Came True.

Chapter VI. Martin Mudd Hears Something Drop.

Chapter VII. Captured by Mudd.

Chapter VIII. A New Arrival from the Lake.

Chapter IX. What Monster Is Coming Now?

Chapter X. Exploring Around the Lake.

Chapter XI. The Letter on the Table.

Chapter XII. Into the Boiling Pot.

Chapter XIII. The Wonderful Cavern.

Chapter XIV. Lost Underground.

Chapter XV. Mr. Mudd Turns Up Again.

Chapter XVI. Martin Mudd Makes a Serious Charge.

Chapter XVII. Caught Napping.

Chapter XVIII. Old P. D. Looks Down Over the Rocks.

Chapter XIX. Dick Improves His Opportunities.

Chapter XX. The Sleeping Plesiosaurus.

Chapter XXI. Lassoing Old P. D.

Chapter XXII. Mudd on Top Again.

Chapter XXIII. Is This Strange Story True?

Chapter XXIV. Conclusion.

Dick and Dr. Dan;

Or, THE BOY MONSTER HUNTERS
OF THE BAD LANDS.

By C. LITTLE.

FRANK TOUSEY
24 Union Square
New York, N. Y.

1900

Dick and Dr. Dan.

By C. LITTLE.

CHAPTER I.
A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR.

“Hello, Dick! Where are you going in such a hurry? You must have had your breakfast and it isn’t dinner time yet.”

Two boys of about eighteen years met unexpectedly in the little park in front of the United States National Museum, Washington, D. C.

Dick Darrell was one and Charley Nicholson the other; both were in the employ of the paleontological department of the museum, their duties being to sort out and arrange the bones of the various prehistoric animals found by the agents of the museum in different parts of the United States.

“I’m not after grub just now, Charley,” replied Dick. “Perhaps you don’t know that I’ve been under the weather for the last day or two, but such is the fact. Wasn’t coming down this morning, but I just received a telegram from old Poynter telling me to come at once if I was able to leave my bed.”

“Hello!” cried Charley. “What’s in the wind now, I wonder? Have you drawn another prize?”

“Can’t tell.”

“Great Scott! I only wish it was my luck.”

“Wait a bit. Perhaps I’m going to get the grand bounce.”

“I hardly think that. Oh, I know! You are going to be sent off on some bone hunting expedition or another. A regular picnic. Something that will last all summer. No such luck ever comes my way.”

“You can’t tell. Stick to your work and try to do it the best you possibly can; that’s the thing that brings promotion every time.”

The boys separated inside the employees’ door of the museum, for Charley’s duties called him to the extreme end of the long building, while Dick was bound for Professor Poynter’s office, on the second floor.

That genial old scientist was at his desk busily writing.

“Good morning, Dick,” he called out. “One minute, my boy, until I finish this letter; then I will talk.”

Dick waited patiently for fully fifteen minutes, after which the professor folded up his letter and motioned to him to draw up a chair.

“Dick,” he said, “we want you for another expedition. You did so well down among the fossil beds of South Carolina that we are disposed to try you again.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Dick. “I always try to do my best. What is it to be this time?”

“Well, it isn’t bone hunting,” replied the professor, “and you will be surprised when I tell you what it is.”

Professor Poynter paused and began tumbling over the mass of papers upon his desk, leaving Dick to wonder what it all meant.

“I have the letter here somewhere,” he said, “but I don’t seem to find it. Ah, yes! Here it is, and here’s the newspaper cutting attached to it which first called our attention to the matter. It’s from the Cheyenne Herald of a month ago. Listen to this:

“Ike Izard and Doctor Dan are in town again, back from a three weeks’ bone hunting trip in the Bad Lands. Ike seems to be sober—more so than usual—but he reports a most astonishing experience, which is certainly enough to make us wonder how heavy a supply of Cheyenne bug juice he and the doctor had with them on their last trip.

“It seems that they started out from Node Ranch and went into the Bad Lands as far as Walker’s Creek, pretty well covering the central eastern section of Converse county; one morning, after climbing a high mountain—Ike declares they went up at least 5,000 feet—they came suddenly upon a lake a mile or more wide and five miles long, which is not down on the maps, and so Ike took the liberty of naming it for himself, Izard Lake.

“Here they went into camp and spent several days, as the shores of the lake were well strewn with fossil bones of the sort they were out after.

“On the morning of the third day Ike was suddenly awakened by a strange bellowing, which seemed to come from off on the water. He shook up the doctor and they both ran out and were nearly paralyzed (question is if they weren’t entirely paralyzed the night before) at seeing a huge monster swimming toward them over the lake, bellowing like a mad bull.

“Ike describes it as having a huge oval body, rounded like a turtle, about twenty feet long, from which rose an immensely long neck—Ike declares it was half as long again as the body, ending in a comparatively small head, like a snake’s head in shape, but with an enormous mouth full of monstrous teeth.

“Ike says that the monster swam very gracefully, being provided with fins, which acted as paddles, two on each side. He and the doctor each took a shot at it, but in consequence of their semi-paralyzed condition the shots did nothing more than to so scare the creature that it took a header into the lake and was seen no more.

“This is the biggest yarn Ike has given us yet, but he promises to think up a bigger one for the next trip into the Bad Lands. Send it along, Isaac. We shall always be glad to print any story that you may have to tell.”

“There!” exclaimed Professor Poynter. “What do you think of that, Dick?”

“Why, it seems to me, sir, that somebody has worked up the description of the Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus and made a good yarn about it. Of course you don’t believe the story can be true?”

“Such was my first idea, of course,” replied the professor, “but I make it an invariable rule to investigate all these newspaper stories. Nine-tenths of them, of course, turn out to be fakes, but as it happens in this case that this fellow Izard is in our employ and we know him to be a most faithful man and entirely a sober person, I felt all the more interest in the matter, so I at once wrote him and received this reply.”

Here the professor unfolded the letter and read as follows:

Cheyenne, Wyo., March 10.

Dear Sir:—That story about the monster is true i swar it is as I hope for hiven i didn’t rite it to you bekos i tought you wood think me line but its true jest the same and if you don’t believe me ask Doc Dan who will tell you that we seen it up to the lake say jest fer satisfaction i am goin’ to take my oath before a notary publick the thing was there i never seen nothing like it in all my life you couldn’t ketch it and there would be no use trying don’t believe a yoke of steers could drag the carcass down to Node Ranch even if you could get the steers up the mountain which you couldn’t. Mebbe it would pay you to send a feller out to get a snap shot at it. Yrs trooly,

Ike Izard.

P. S.—You can bet your bottom dollar it’s no lye. Ike.

Accompanying the letter was the affidavit duly signed before a notary public.

There was also one from Doctor Dan, who Professor Poynter explained was an Indian guide, who usually accompanied Ike Izard on his expeditions after fossil bones.

“There,” said Professor Poynter. “There’s the story, Dick. It is extremely unlikely that it is true, but still it may be, and we have determined to send you out to the Bad Lands of Wyoming to investigate. When will you be ready to start?”

“To-morrow morning,” replied Dick, promptly, “but let me ask one question, have the fossil remains of the P. Dolichodeirus been found in that part of the Bad Lands?”

“Many times, my boy.”

“Then it is possible that one or two specimens may have survived?”

“Just possible, but no more. As you are well aware, this creature belongs to an entirely different period of the earth’s history from the one in which we are at present living. On the other hand, it is a fact that the lakes of eastern Wyoming are the remains of an old prehistoric sea which once covered all this section. The Great Salt Lake is another remnant of it and there are others still. The chances of the story being true, however, are exceedingly remote.”

“It would be an immense discovery if it was, sir.”

“Of incalculable value to science. Should you be fortunate enough to make such a discovery you are authorized to spare no expense to pen the creature into some cove, if such a thing is possible, but we prefer you should not kill it. Of course if you see it you will telegraph me at the first possible moment and I will come right out. Every effort should be made to take it alive, in order that we may study its habits. You can go to the cashier and draw what money you think you may need. You will go first to Node Ranch, where I have instructed Doctor Dan to meet you; Izard himself is off on another expedition and you will not see him. That’s all, except that you will need an assistant. I leave it to you to make your choice.”

“Will Charley Nicholson suit, sir?” asked Dick, eagerly.

“He is rather young,” replied the professor, “but still I know you are great friends, so I will not object. That’s all, Dick. Leave me now, for I have a mountain of work ahead of me. It won’t be necessary for you to call again.”

Dick left the office, wild with enthusiasm. As for Charley, there was no restraining him when he heard the good news.

And, indeed, the boys were admirably adapted to the work, Dick being without parents or family ties of any kind. Charley’s mother had long since been dead, while his father was a sea captain, who showed little or no interest in the welfare of his son.

Thus these two boys were practically without ties and it might be supposed that Dick could easily have named an earlier hour for his departure than the next morning, and so he might and certainly would have done so if it had not happened that he had an engagement to attend a social gathering that evening at the house of one of his friends.

Having drawn his money, Dick bought tickets for himself and Charley for Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, where it would be necessary to go off on a branch road to Node Ranch.

The boys spent the afternoon in buying the necessary things for the trip and in packing up.

At ten o’clock Dick left a certain house on B street, N. W., where he had passed the evening, and started for his own room, which was located on H street, a few squares away. As he was passing down B street, deeply engrossed in thought about the strange mission with which he had been charged, he saw two young girls come running down the stoop of a house a little way ahead of him.

Evidently they lived close by, for they wore no wraps and the April air was damp and chilly.

Dick watched them as they turned the corner and they would have passed out of his mind in a moment if he had not been startled all at once by a piercing scream.

“Help! Help!” came the cry ringing out upon the night.

Dick darted around the corner like a shot. He was certain that the cry had proceeded from the two girls and he was right.

There they stood backed against the iron railing of the corner house, with two young toughs, both very drunk, standing before them, laughing.

“You can’t pass us that way, ladies,” Dick heard one of the pair say. “We want to know your names and where you are going—that’s what.”

“Hands off those ladies!” cried Dick, running up.

Right in front of them, not ten feet away, a huge shiny head, long and flat, with an enormous mouth filled with horrible teeth and two great, glittering eyes set on the sides, projected over the rocks. “The monster!” shouted Dick, and instantly the head darted forward, followed by a long, sinewy neck.
Inset 1: Mr. Martin Mudd.
Inset 2: “Hands off those Ladies.”

“Mind your own business,” snarled one of the “lushers,” aiming a blow at Dick. “What is it to you?”

“This!” cried Dick, striking out from the shoulder and landing his fist between the fellow’s eyes, tumbling him back against the electric light pole.

The fellow gave a yell, reeled and fell over in the gutter, while the other one jumped in and caught Dick by the throat.

“I’ll kill you for this!” he hissed, whipping out a long knife and flourishing it around the neighborhood of Dick’s heart, as he backed him up against the post.

CHAPTER II.
ANOTHER MYSTERY OF A DIFFERENT SORT.

Dick was in a dangerous fix.

The fellow who had caught hold of him was very drunk and had a grip like a vise.

The two girls screamed, while Dick tried to grab the knife which the “lusher” kept flourishing, swearing horribly at Dick all the while.

How it would have ended if help had not come promptly it is impossible to say, but, as it happened, just at this critical moment a man came dashing around the corner.

He was a tall and very thin person, shabbily dressed in an old ulster and a battered plug hat.

He seemed to take in the situation at a glance and pounced upon the “lusher” without ceremony, wrenching away the knife and flinging it into the street, pounding the fellow about the head and face with such vigor that he promptly took to his heels and made off, followed by his friend.

“There!” exclaimed the man in the ulster. “There! That’s the way to do it! Ladies, your most obedient! Let me see, have I not the pleasure of addressing Miss Clara Eglinton? Ah, yes. I thought so. Miss E., your humble servant. Yours, too, Miss What’s-your-name, and yours, my dear sir. My name is Mudd. Martin Mudd. I am always ready and willing to come to the assistance of any one in distress.”

“I’m sure I’m ever so much obliged, sir,” replied Dick. “My name is Darrell. Dick Darrell, I——”

What was the matter with Martin Mudd?

The instant Dick announced his name he started back theatrically, stared, raised his hat to the two girls, and, wheeling about, turned the corner and disappeared.

“Is he crazy? He must be!” exclaimed Dick.

“No, I don’t think so,” replied the girl addressed as Clara Eglinton, a beautiful blonde of about Dick’s own age. “He is very eccentric, though. He sometimes has business with my father. Oh, Mr. Darrell, I want to thank you ever and ever so much for your brave act. Those insulting fellows! It was just dreadful! I don’t know what Susie and I would have done if you had not come.”

“I’m sure I’m most happy to have been of service to you,” replied Dick, raising his hat. “May I offer to see you to your home?”

“Why, it is right here in the next house,” replied the girl. “Good night, Mr. Darrell. We must go in.”

Evidently Miss Eglinton did not care to pursue the acquaintance.

Dick tipped his hat again and the two girls ran up the stoop of a handsome house and vanished in an instant, leaving Dick to continue his walk.

“A pretty girl!” he murmured. “A very pretty girl. I only wish I was going to stay in Washington. I might find a chance to get better acquainted, but I suppose she will forget all about me before I return.”

He walked on, wholly oblivious to the fact that Mr. Martin Mudd, with rubbers on his feet, was stealing after him, staring forward with gleaming eyes.

What prompted Dick to turn suddenly and look behind him just before he reached the next corner?

Surely there must have been some good angel watching over the boy, for there was the man close behind him with the very knife the “lusher” had dropped clutched in his hand.

“Now I’ve got you, Dick Darrell!” he hissed, and he made a desperate lunge at the boy, who dodged the stroke just in time.

Martin Mudd did not attempt to repeat it. With a sharp cry he turned and ran like a deer.

Dick shouted after him and followed back along the block, but the man turned the corner first and when Dick got around he had disappeared.

And that was the end of the adventure.

Deeply puzzled over the mysterious affair which he could only attribute to insanity on the part of the man with the muddy name, Dick went home and was soon in bed, where he lay tossing wide awake until morning.

It was the tone in which Martin Mudd had spoken his name and the start he had given when Dick first introduced himself that bothered the boy.

“He certainly seemed to know me,” Dick said to himself a hundred times. “What can it all mean?”

He gave up thinking about it when morning came and hurried to the B. & O. station, where he met Charley all ready for the journey.

The run to Chicago was made in good time and without adventure.

There was no stop here, except to change cars, and the next thing the boys knew they were in Omaha, where they took the Union Pacific to Cheyenne and then ran up to Fort Fetterman, changed cars again and in due time were set down on a barren, alkali plain, where there was a station, a windmill, a water tank and a dozen houses—they had reached Node Ranch at last.

The boys went at once to the Palace Hotel, which proved to be a dirty old roost of the worst kind.

“Heavens!” exclaimed Charley; “if we had to stay here long I should give up the ghost.”

Dick felt about the same way, but as it happened they did not have to stay at the Palace at all, for they had scarcely located themselves in their room and Dick was just getting ready to go out and look for Doctor Dan, when all at once there was a knock on the door and when Charley opened it there stood a tall Indian dressed in an ordinary business suit, with nothing to distinguish him from a white man except his features and his long black hair.

“I want to see Dick Darrell,” he said, without a trace of accent. “Are you the young man?”

“No; this is Dick Darrell,” replied Charley, pointing to his friend. “Come in.”

The Indian entered the room with solemn tread and an expression of imperturbable gravity upon his swarthy face.

“I suppose this is Doctor Dan!” exclaimed Dick, extending his hand. “I’m glad to see you, I’m sure.”

“That’s how,” replied the Indian, “I was ordered to meet you here by Professor Poynter.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m ordered to take you up into the Bad Lands to Izard Lake,” continued Doctor Dan, slowly. “The horses are all ready, likewise the pack mules, of which there are two. Provision I have laid in enough to last a month. I have three rifles and two guns. I have blankets and two tents and cooking utensils. If there is anything more you wish I will procure it if it is to be had in Node Ranch.”

The deliberateness with which he spoke was almost ludicrous. It was all the boys could do to suppress their smiles.

“Why, I should say you had got everything we could possibly need,” said Dick. “You speak as good English as I do, doctor. Are you a half-breed?”

“No, sir, I am not,” replied Doctor Dan, in the same slow way. “I am a full blooded Sioux, but I was adopted by a rancher when I was a little boy and I was educated at Carlisle College, Pennsylvania, an institution for the education of Indian youths, of which you have doubtless heard.”

Poor Dick was almost overpowered. As for Charley, he had to go out in the passage and explode or he would have laughed in Doctor Dan’s face.

“Well, I’m sure I’m much obliged to you for doing everything up in such good shape,” said Dick. “When do we start?”

“Right away after dinner if you follow my advice,” was the reply. “We have got a long road before us. It will take us three days to reach the foot of the mountain. If you are anxious to get to work, as I take it you are, there is no time to lose.”

“I certainly am,” said Dick, “so we will go at once. Charley and I will be ready say at one o’clock.”

“At one o’clock,” repeated Doctor Dan, solemnly. “That is an engagement. I will keep it. Good day.”

“What about the monster?” asked Dick. “You saw it, I believe.”

“I did. It is there,” replied Doctor Dan.

“Can you describe it?”

Doctor Dan entered into a most accurate description of the Plesiosaurus. It seemed hard to imagine that he was lying and Dick’s hope was greatly aroused.

“It will be the making of us, Charley,” he remarked, as they went in to dinner a little later, after Doctor Dan had left the hotel.

“Gentlemen, did you register?” called the clerk from behind the desk.

“No,” replied Dick, turning back.

“Then please do. It’s the law and we have to trouble you.”

Dick took up the pen and was about to sign his name to the register when he suddenly gave a quick start.

“What’s the matter?” asked Charley.

“Look!” exclaimed Dick, pointing to the name written on the line above where he was about to write his own.

The name, written in a bold, firm hand, was Martin Mudd.

CHAPTER III.
ABOUT THE STRANGE HEAD THAT CAME OVER THE ROCKS.

“Strange!” whispered Charley, as Dick signed the register. “There could hardly be two with such a name.”

Dick had told Charley all about his adventure, of course.

“I don’t see how it can be the same man,” he said, “but we’ll soon find out. Do you know that gentleman?” he asked the clerk, pointing to the name.

“Yes, I know him,” was the reply. “He came in by the westbound train this morning. He used to live here. Why do you ask?”

“Because I met him in Washington only a few days ago. Is he in the hotel now?”

“No,” replied the clerk. “He bought a horse and went off up into the mountains. He’s a mining prospector. If you should happen to meet him I advise you strongly to give him the cold shoulder. He’s a bad lot.”

“Is he crazy?” asked Dick.

“Not he!” exclaimed the clerk. “He’s a big liar, though, and a thief from way back, but he’s well educated and can talk almost as well as Doctor Dan.”

“What about Doctor Dan?” asked Charley. “Is he all right?”

“Yes, you can bank on him every time, even if he is an Indian. Queer feller, isn’t he? They say he’s got a lot of education, but an Injun’s an Injun wherever you strike him, that’s sure.”

Having delivered himself of this sentiment the clerk wrote the room number after the boys’ names and Dick and Charley went in to dinner, which was much better than they expected to find.

At one o’clock precisely the start was made, Doctor Dan appearing on the scene with the horses and mules.

All the rest of the afternoon the ride continued.

Their way led over a barren plain overgrown with sage brush and strewn with the white alkali of the country.

High mountains rose in the far distance. Doctor Dan informed the boys that they skirted the edge of the Bad Lands.

When night came on a halt was made and Doctor Dan put up the tents in the most expert manner, hobbling the horses and cooking a splendid supper of antelope steak and a sort of cornbread, which he rolled out on a flat stone and cooked in round balls among the hot ashes.

After supper the boys rolled themselves up in their blankets and slept comfortably until morning, Doctor Dan going on guard.

He informed the boys that he was accustomed to going three or four days at a stretch without sleep and that they would not be called upon to mount guard at night until they reached the lake and probably not then unless they found some special cause for alarm.

The second day’s journey resembled the first too closely to need description. When they went into camp that night they could see beyond them a stretch of country which appeared to be one mass of great sand hills which rose in every direction.

Doctor Dan informed them that this was the beginning of the Bad Lands.

“Those sand hills run away over into South Dakota for more than a hundred miles,” he declared. “It’s a terrible country. Not a drop of water anywhere. There is nothing like it in the whole world.”

Dick and Charley were all anxiety to see it and within a very short time after they started out next morning their wish was gratified, for they found themselves in the midst of the sand hills steadily advancing toward an isolated peak, which Doctor Dan informed them was their destination.

It was a fearful country surely. As far as the eye could reach the sand hills rose all around them, with not a tree nor a blade of grass visible anywhere.

Later in the day they began to ascend and at last came out upon a broad table land, a mere desert of yellow sand, broken by great rifts called barrancas in every direction. It required an artist to work around these breaks, but Doctor Dan seemed to be perfectly acquainted with the trail, although he declared that he had never visited this part of the Bad Lands, excepting on his previous trip.

The mountain was now steadily drawing nearer, and by four o’clock they reached its base without having seen the slightest sign of life of any kind since they entered the Bad Lands.

“Now, then, where does the lake lie?” asked Dick, looking up at the towering cliffs of reddish, disintegrated stone which rose above them.

“It’s in that direction, about a thousand feet up,” replied Doctor Dan, pointing.

“Can we ride up?”

“Oh, yes. There’s an easy trail. It’s almost like a road, but it winds about a good deal.”

“Then we go right on and camp there?”

“Just as you say, sir.”

“I say yes, by all means, providing it is a good place for our camp.”

“It is quite as good as it is here. Better, in fact, for the lake lies in a sort of natural basin and if we should happen to get a snowstorm, which we may, we would be protected.”

“We will go right on, then,” said Charley. “Hadn’t we better, Dick?”

“Decidedly,” replied Dick. “We can get our permanent camp all fixed up before dark.”

The ascent then began. As they passed up the mountainside with no trees to obstruct their view, the boys were amazed at the wonderful panorama displayed.

It was as if they were looking down upon a sea of sand, and it was easy to imagine it the bed of some old, vanished ocean, as scientists tell us the Bad Lands actually are.

For half an hour the horses toiled up the steep slope, first to the right, then to the left, but always rising until at last they came suddenly out upon a level plain, entirely surrounded by towering cliffs, except for the narrow break through which they entered.

“The crater of an old volcano!” cried Dick. “That’s what this place is sure.”

“So I have been informed,” replied Doctor Dan, with his usual gravity.

“Where’s the lake?” asked Charley.

“Just around that bend in the cliffs,” was the reply. “This sink is double, as you may say. The wall runs pretty near through the middle of it. One half is dry and the lake fills the other half. We shall see it in a minute now.”

They rode on and soon turned the corner of the dividing cliff.

A broad stretch of water now lay before them. The lake was many times longer than the dry half of the old crater.

Its surface was perfectly placid and the water seemed to give out a strange, sulphurous odor. The shores were broken by projecting points of rocks, which cut up the lake into many small coves.

“Now, where’s your Plesiosaurus?” exclaimed Charley. “Let him show himself. He’s got an audience that will appreciate him, you bet.”

“It was right over there abreast that little island that I first saw him,” said Doctor Dan, gravely. “His body reached almost to that point of rocks on the opposite shore. I hope you don’t think it is all a fake, boys, but I suppose you will never believe it until you see for yourselves.”

“That’s what we are here for,” replied Dick, “and it is no reflection on you, doctor, if we find it hard work to believe what we have not seen, but where do we make our camp?”

Doctor Dan pointed out the spot where he and Ike Izard had camped and there, sure enough, the boys found traces of a fire and other things which seemed to prove his story true.

The horses were now hobbled and the tents pitched.

Dr. Dan cooked supper in his usual fine style and everything was arranged for the night.

When the supper was over, as it was not yet dark, Dick proposed a walk, and all three, shouldering their rifles, for there was no telling what might happen, started along the lake shore, winding in and out around the projecting cliffs until they had gone at least a mile.

It was now getting toward dusk and Dick, in spite of his hopes, began to abandon all idea of seeing anything of the monster of the lake that day.

“I suppose we might wait around here for days and not see him,” he said. “Wonder how long a Plesiosaurus can stay down under the water, anyhow?”

“Is it known?” asked Doctor Dan.

“Certainly not, since only their bones have been found,” replied Charley, “but it must be an air breathing animal or it couldn’t have swum round with its head above the water the way you saw it.”

“If that’s the case he must come up every little while,” said Dick.

“I don’t know,” answered Doctor Dan. “We stayed round here two days after we saw the thing, but it never showed itself again. I’ve got a theory about that, but I don’t suppose you young men care to hear my views.”

“Indeed we do,” cried Dick. “Out with it, doctor.”

“Why,” replied the Indian, “my idea is that this lake connects with another, which is hidden underground, and that the Plesiosaurus makes its home down there and so gets all the air it needs without coming to the surface at all.”

“And a very plausible theory it is,” said Dick. “I was thinking——”

Right here Dick was interrupted by a wild cry from Charley.

“Look there! Look there!” he shouted, pointing to the rocks right in front of them, which concealed the entrance to another cove.

Dick and Dr. Dan grasped their rifles and started back in terror.

Right in front of them, not ten feet away, a huge, shiny head, long and flat, with an enormous mouth filled with horrible teeth and two great, glittering eyes set on the sides, projected over the rocks.

“The monster!” shouted Dick, and instantly the head darted forward, followed by a long, sinewy neck as big round as a man’s body.

The horrid jaws opened and closed with a vicious snap and a frightful bellow rang out among the rocks.

CHAPTER IV.
CHARLEY IN CLOSE QUARTERS.

“Fire!” shouted Charley, and he instantly flung up his rifle and let fly at the huge, snake-like head, which was withdrawn instantly.

The bellowing was heard on the other side of the rocks for a moment and then all was still.

“What in thunder did you do that for?” Dick burst out. “Don’t you know the orders? On no account were we to kill the creature. By thunder, if you have killed it I am disgraced forever. I wouldn’t have had it happen so for a thousand dollars. How could you be such a fool?”

Poor Charley stood abashed.

It was a terrible thing to him to be so called down by Dick, but he had allowed his excitement to make him play the fool and he knew it.

“Dick, excuse me, please,” was all he said, and then he turned and walked away.

Dick was too angry for the moment to follow him or call him back. He had more to say about it and he spat it right out before Doctor Dan.

“Softly, softly, sir,” replied the half-breed. “Don’t be too hard on Mr. Charley. He was excited and acted before he had time to think; besides, I don’t think he hit the head or the neck either. Come, we’ll see.”

Doctor Dan started to go around the rocks. Dick began to feel a little ashamed of his violence.

“Come, Charley,” he shouted. “Come on, old man. Maybe you didn’t hit the Plesiosaurus after all.”

But Charley continued to walk in the direction of the camp and never even looked back at Dick.

He was a very sensitive fellow and easily offended. Dick knew this and felt a good deal troubled.

He wanted to follow Charley up and make it all right with him, but then, on the other hand, he did not like to leave Doctor Dan to face the danger of meeting the Plesiosaurus alone.

“Come on! Come on!” he shouted again. “Don’t be grumpy, Charley. I’m going to see what mischief has been done.”

But as Charley paid no attention to his shout he gave it up for the moment and hurried around the rocks into another cove, where Dr. Dan stood looking off on the lake.

“I don’t see anything of the monster, Mr. Darrell,” he said. “It must have pulled down into the water again.”

“Don’t bother to call me Mr. Darrell. Call me Dick. Here’s where it must have been. The water is very deep right up against the shore, isn’t it? Of course this is the place.”

Here the space between the rocks and the water was not more than three feet in width.

It would have been an easy matter for the monster to have thrown his head and neck over the rocks, which were not more than a dozen feet high above the water, but there was no trace of the Plesiosaurus to be seen now.

“Do you suppose he hit him, Doc?” asked Dick, anxiously.

“No, I don’t,” was the reply. “We should see blood here somewhere if he had, and there is none.”

“Anyhow, the shot must have sent the monster down under the water again. It’s too bad, too bad.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Dr. Dan. “It seems to me that it’s about all right. You couldn’t have done anything anyway. You’ve seen the thing with your own eyes now, Dick. You can’t accuse me of lying any more.”

“I never did,” replied Dick. “It was hard to believe that one of these strange creatures had survived, for they belong to the animal creation of one of the most distant prehistoric periods, but seeing is believing, so no more need be said about it. Question now is what’s to be done?”

“Your orders are to take the monster alive if possible?”

“Yes, and to telegraph Professor Poynter at once if I caught a sight of it.”

“That’s impossible. We can’t pull up stakes and go back to Node Ranch without accomplishing more than we have already. It would be ridiculous.”

“It seems so to me. I didn’t give it any thought at the time I received my instructions, but I see it now.”

“Probably Professor Poynter gave it no thought, either. What you want to do is to hold on here a week or so and try and find out what the habits of this creature are. When we know more about it we can come to some conclusion as to what we ought to do, which is more than we can now.”

“You are right,” said Dick, “and that’s what we will do; but I must get back to the camp. It isn’t going to pay us to quarrel. I shall have to apologize to Charley for the calling down I gave him.”

“And I’ll keep on around the lake,” replied Doctor Dan. “You and Charley can follow me up after you settle your quarrel.”

They separated then and Dick hurried back to the camp, feeling very sorry for his explosion and full of anxiety to make matters right with his friend.

But when he reached the camp Charley was nowhere visible. Dick looked into the tent, and, not finding him there, set up a shout, a private cry of their own, which ought to have been answered by a different shout. It was just a little signal between the boys agreed upon before they started for the Bad Lands.

Much to Dick’s relief, the answer came promptly from around the point of rocks beyond the camp.

“Hello, Charley, are you there?” shouted Dick.

“Yes. Come around here, Dick.”

Dick started on the run; as soon as he turned the point of rocks he saw, to his surprise, that Charley had pulled off his clothes and was swimming around in the lake.

Evidently he had got over his “mad,” for he called out:

“Hey, Dick, this is bully. The water is just splendid. Come on and have a swim.”

“Come out of there! Come out at once!” cried Dick. “Good heavens, suppose the Plesiosaurus catches you! Charley, you must be crazy to do such a thing.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” replied Charley, turning on his back and kicking up the water. “I was just dying for a bath and I made up my mind I’d have one anyhow. When I get mad I always want to get in the water and cool down. That’s me. Come on and try it, Dick.”

Dick was strongly tempted. He stood looking at Charley for a moment and then, throwing aside his coat, began to take off his boots.

“I’m sorry I spoke so rough to you, Charley,” he called out. “I won’t do it again.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I ought not to have fired, of course, but you see I was excited and—oh, thunder! What’s this?”

The water all around Charley suddenly began boiling like a pot.

“Quick! Quick! Strike in for the shore!” yelled Dick.

At the same instant the Plesiosaurus rose to the surface of the lake right behind Charley.

First the huge snake-like head was lifted up high in the air, the sinuous neck, which seemed to be at least ten feet long, turning and twisting horribly.

Then the enormous body came into view, long, rounding and black and extending back twenty feet or more from the base of the neck.

“Oh, Dick! Help!” yelled Charley, swimming with all his might for the shore.

At the same instant the strange creature craned its neck forward and made a quick dart for the boy.

Dick flung up his rifle and fired straight at the monster’s head.

“OH, DICK! HELP!” YELLED CHARLEY, SWIMMING WITH ALL HIS MIGHT FOR THE SHORE. AT THE SAME INSTANT THE STRANGE CREATURE CRANED ITS NECK FORWARD AND MADE A QUICK DART FOR THE BOY. DICK FLUNG UP HIS RIFLE AND FIRED STRAIGHT AT THE MONSTER’S HEAD.
Inset: Dick captured by the Monster.

CHAPTER V.
THE DREAM THAT CAME TRUE.

It was a frightful moment for Dick, and worse, of course, for poor Charley, who barely escaped being caught in the awful jaws of the Plesiosaurus.

Dick’s shot saved his friend, however.

Not that the monster was hit—Dick knew that he had made a miss—but the report of the rifle seemed to startle it, and, with that same awful bellow, it arched its neck like a swan and sank beneath the lake, to be seen no more.

Charley came crawling up out of the water half dead with terror.

It was some time before Dick recovered himself.

Charley dressed and they stood side by side discussing the situation and watching the lake.

“We are even now, Charley,” said Dick. “We have both broken orders and fired at the Plesiosaurus. I suppose if we are going to keep on seeing the creature we shall get used to him in time, but, upon my word, he’s the strangest looking citizen I ever laid my eyes on, that’s one sure thing.”

“A regular nightmare,” said Charley. “Come, let’s look up Doctor Dan. He must have heard the firing and is no doubt wondering what it means.”

The guide came running up before they were out of the cove.

“So you have been firing at him again!” he exclaimed. “You are bound to kill him it seems.”

“I’m the one this time,” said Dick, and he told the story.

“Well, well! That settles the question!” exclaimed Dr. Dan. “The monster is real—it is very much alive—it is ready any time to make a meal of one of us. We want to look out.”

“I move we make the circuit of the lake,” said Charley.

“Well, you can’t do it unless we get the boat out,” replied Dr. Dan. “I was brought up short by the rocks not a great way beyond the place where I left you, Dick. I suggest we stay right where we are and watch.”

The boat was a rubber affair, which Dick did not feel much confidence in, and with the recollection of what had just occurred fresh in his mind, he did not feel very anxious to venture out upon the lake, so the remainder of the day was spent along the shore, but the wary old antediluvian monster did not show itself again.

Night came down upon them at last. Doctor Dan cooked another of his capital suppers, which the boys enjoyed to the fullest extent, and about nine o’clock they rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to sleep, Doctor Dan promising to stand guard till midnight.

“If I don’t see anything startling by that time I’ll turn in without disturbing you,” he said. “Really, boys, I see no necessity for keeping watch here.”

But there was a necessity far greater than Doctor Dan knew, and it would have been much wiser to have kept guard until they had studied the habits of the Plesiosaurus a bit.

Dick remembered waking up when the half-breed lay down beside him, but it was only for a moment. Then he dropped off into a deep sleep again and began to dream.

It seemed to him that he had drifted far back in point of time to the days when the Bad Lands were in their original position, at the bottom of that old prehistoric sea which is known to have covered all this part of Wyoming at one time.

It seemed to Dick that he was alone in the rubber boat paddling for all he was worth, trying to make the little island which they had seen in the lake, and that he was in a big hurry about it, for the reason that Miss Clara Eglinton stood upon the shore of the island calling to him to come and save her. What she feared was clear enough, too, for there right behind her, stealing out of the bushes, was the man Martin Mudd, clutching a long, glittering knife in his hand.

So ran the dream and it was most fearfully vivid. Dick thought that he shouted to Clara to throw herself into the lake and he would pick her up in the boat, for it seemed certain that he could not reach the shore in time.

Clara did so and Dick threw all his strength into the paddling and was getting along over the water with great rapidity, when all at once the surface of the lake began to boil like a pot and the Plesiosaurus rose right alongside of the boat, made a dart at him with its awful head and as Clara screamed, instead of catching him in its jaws, the creature wound its neck about his body and lifted him high in the air.

Dick yelled for all he was worth—actually yelled—awoke to find himself yelling and it was no nightmare, either, for something thick and slimy was twisted around his body and he was drawn out of the tent, still wrapped in his blanket, all like a flash.

It was awful. Above him he could see the head of the monster plainly, for it was bright moonlight; he put out his hands and tried to tear himself free from that awful thing, which held him captive.

It was wet and slimy; looking down he could see the huge body of the Plesiosaurus dragging itself over the ground and then all at once Charley and Doctor Dan came running out of the tent shouting.

Charley was empty handed, but the half-breed had his rifle and let fly at the monster.

The bullet struck it in the side and glanced off as though it had hit a rock.

The next Dick knew the Plesiosaurus slid into the lake and pulled its neck down, the water closing over poor Dick as Doctor Dan sent another shot flying from the shore.

CHAPTER VI.
MARTIN MUDD HEARS SOMETHING DROP.

Dick gave himself up for lost. The whole thing had struck him so suddenly that he had scarcely time to realize what it all meant when he was in the lake, half crushed in the sinuous folds of that awful neck.

But a change was close at hand.

Dr. Dan’s second bullet struck the monster on the neck, just below the head.

What damage it did it is impossible to say, but it must have caused the creature some pain, for it instantly unwound itself from Dick’s body, the neck twisting and turning like a boa constrictor’s; all in an instant Dick found himself free, for the blanket was unwound by the twisting of the Plesiosaurus and Dick, in his shirt and trousers and stocking feet, swam away for dear life.

The Plesiosaurus made no attempt to reach out for him apparently, or, if it did, Dick knew nothing about it, but he swam on, possessed of the horrible fear of feeling those great teeth dug into his legs.

Nothing of the sort happened, but something else did, almost as serious.

Before he knew it Dick found himself suddenly caught in some undercurrent which seemed to draw him along with frightful rapidity down deeper and deeper into the lake.

Dick was a splendid swimmer—it would have been difficult to find a better one in a boy of his age.

He tried to turn aside out of the current to rise to the surface—to do anything to escape that awful suction, but it was all no use.

Naturally he gave himself up for lost and he surely would have been if relief had not come in a moment, for all at once Dick’s head came up out of the water, although he had sunk to a great depth.

But the suction continued and the current ran just as swiftly.

It was pitch dark. Dick could not make out where he was, but the rushing of the water seemed to be echoed back from rocks, which were close at hand, so he assumed that he must be in some cave.

On he flew—on—on for fully ten minutes. He had thrown himself on his back now and was resting comfortably enough, but, try all he would, he could not turn out of that terrible current, for he was in the subterranean outlet of the lake, one of those underground streams often found in the far West.

Dick had read enough about them to realize the situation, and as he knew perfectly well that many of these underground streams never come to the surface, the prospect was anything but encouraging.

All at once the strength of the current seemed to slacken—a little further on it grew less still until at last there was scarcely any movement at all and just then, to his great joy, Dick caught sight of a patch of moonlight striking across the water on ahead, which showed him the black, dripping walls of the cave.

“There’s an opening there,” he thought. “I’m saved if I can only get through it. I must. If it isn’t big enough to let me through I shall give up in despair.”

His heart almost stood still as he thought of this new danger, but he swam on and in a moment was crawling through a narrow opening, which brought him out upon a ledge of rock under some towering cliffs, where he sank down too much exhausted to hold his head up, and lay so for several moments, when all at once he was aroused by hearing a voice below him say:

“They are coming! I can see them. It’s just Bill and the girl.”

“Ah, but I can’t see nothing—hold on! I’m lying. I do see them. Yes, it’s just Bill and the girl, as sure as fate, Mr. Mudd.”

The pronouncing of the name put Dick on the alert instantly.

The two men, whoever they might be, seemed to be just below the ledge upon which he was resting.

He crawled to the edge and looked down.

Now, for the first time, he perceived his true situation.

He had come out on the side of the mountain. Far below him lay the sand hills, bathed in moonlight, extending off in the distance as far as he could see, while directly at his feet ran a narrow trail, which seemed to go winding higher up the mountain, passing under the shelf.

Away down the trail he could see two figures mounted upon horses making their way up the mountainside, but he could not, from his position, make out just where the two men were standing, although he could hear their voices plain enough.

Was it really the man Martin Mudd?

It seemed so strange that he should have dreamed about him and that his dream should come out partially true like this.

Dick craned his neck over the rock as far as he dared, catching sight of the men at last as they stood there leaning against the wall directly underneath the overhanging ledge.

It was Martin Mudd, sure enough. The moon shone directly upon him, and, although the glance was a brief one, Dick could see him plainly.

He pulled back quick and crouched upon the rock, listening, for Mudd had begun to talk again.

“Yes, Tony,” he was saying, “this is a case of revenge upon the old man in part and a case of true love for the other part. You may think me looney, but I actually have fallen in love with Clara Eglinton and I am determined to make her my wife.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the concealed Tony. “Your wife! Why, she might as well be the wife of a coyote. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

“What do you mean, you pigeon-breasted tenderfoot!” cried Mudd. “I’d have you to understand I am about to come into a fortune. As soon as I put a knife into Dick Darrell’s heart I collect $10,000. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Call me a coyote, indeed.”

Dick was lost in amazement. For the life of him he couldn’t imagine what it all meant.

“Who in the world wants me out of the way?” he thought again and again, as he listened to still further conversation about mines and mining, which did not interest him at all.

All this time the two figures on the horses were coming steadily on up the trail.

Mudd was evidently watching through a night glass, for once he made a remark about its being misty. At last he suddenly exclaimed:

“Here they are. Lay low, Tony. You jump in and pretend to seize Bill. I’ll take care of the girl.”

Dick stood up, clutching a heavy stone in each hand.

“Halt, there!” shouted Tony, suddenly springing out of his concealment as the forward horse came around the turn in the rocks.

“Miss Clara, your most obedient,” said Martin Mudd, also stepping out into view. “Sorry to detain you on your way to join your father at the mine, but I have a little business to transact with you.”

The girl screamed.

Bill pretended to resist and did some threatening, but yielded to Tony without a struggle just the same.

“Get off the horse,” cried Mudd. “Now, then, no nonsense, my dear; you are in my power. Unless something drops I——”

“Here it is,” cried a voice above them, and Dick Darrell jumped down from the shelf above still clutching the stones in his hands.

CHAPTER VII.
CAPTURED BY MUDD.

“Great guns! The Darrell boy!” gasped Martin Mudd, as Dick boldly faced the three men.

“Help! Oh, save me from this fellow!” screamed Clara.

Dick threw up his right hand and let one of the stones fly.

That was the time Martin Mudd came near seeing his finish.

If he had not dodged the stone he would have got it alongside the head.

Dick followed up with the other stone, but that was a miss also and before he could show any further fight Tony and Bill Struthers rushed upon him.

The case looked desperate then.

Clara Eglinton, terribly frightened, urged her horse on up the hill.

“Don’t kill him! Hold him till I come back, Tony!” shouted Mudd, starting up the trail after the horse.

“Yes, hold me if you can get me!” cried Dick, whipping out his revolver. “Now, then, slope, you scoundrels! Slope or I’ll make short work of you both.”

The men dodged back.

Bill Struthers vaulted upon his horse and clashed away up the trail.

“Cowards!” snarled Tony, throwing up his hands. “I surrender, young feller. They have both deserted me. I’m not going to do this act alone.”

“Throw down your gun, then, and your knife, too, if you have one,” retorted Dick. “I don’t trust your kind.”

Tony flung a revolver at Dick’s feet.

“Now the knife.”

“Hain’t got one.”

“I know better. Throw it down or I’ll make a finish of you—do you hear?”

Tony pulled out a long knife and flung it upon the ground by the revolver.

Then, as Dick stooped to pick them up he improved the opportunity to take to his heels and run like a deer up the trail.

“By gracious, they are a sweet lot of cowards!” exclaimed Dick. “Never saw their equal. What in the world shall I do about that girl, though? Strange that I should meet her again away out here. I can’t imagine what it means.”

He was hurrying along up the trail as these thoughts flashed over him, for he had no notion of deserting Clara Eglinton, in spite of the fact that she had deserted him.

There was evidently trouble ahead for himself, too, unless he could keep out of the way of the man Mudd.

More puzzled than ever to know what it all meant, Dick made the best time he could up the trail, but his wet clothes seemed to hold him back and it seemed to him that he had never run so slow as he was running now.

For a few moments he could hear the clatter of the horses’ hoofs upon the stony trail and once he heard Mudd give a shout.

Then, after a few moments of silence, other horses were heard—there seemed to be several of them. Then the sounds suddenly died away and all was still.

Dick followed on, a good deal perplexed.

He had no idea where the trail was going to lead him, but he knew enough about the Bad Lands to be quite well aware that to be lost in them meant simply death.

Even the Indians avoid these dreary wastes. For a hundred miles east and twice as much west Doctor Dan had told him that there was not a ranch or a house of any kind and it was just as bad if he went north, as he seemed to be going now.

“If it wasn’t for Miss Eglinton I would go straight down the mountain and try to get back to camp by the trail we followed,” thought Dick, “yet I can’t run away and leave the poor girl in the hands of those scoundrels. What in the world shall I do, anyhow? I’m blest if I know.”

He pushed on for a short distance further, passing into a dark canyon where the cliffs towered on either side of him.

There was nothing to be seen or heard of the horses here, either. They seemed to have utterly vanished. With many windings the canyon led off up the mountain; it was broken by cross canyons, dark, narrow passages opening off every few yards.

Dick soon saw that the case was absolutely hopeless, for the horses might have taken to any of these canyons.

He came to the conclusion that Martin Mudd and Tony must have had horses concealed near by and had mounted them when they started away from the scene of the fight.

“This won’t do,” exclaimed Dick, stopping short at last. “I must go back. I must go straight down to the foot of the mountain and try to get back to camp and rely upon Doctor Dan to help me find that girl.”

This was a wise resolve, no doubt, but Dick soon found that it was one thing to come to it and quite another to carry it out.

He calculated that he was about three hundred yards away from the entrance of the canyon and he expected to spend five or ten minutes getting back, but, after he had walked twenty, he still found himself between those towering walls of rock, the dark canyon still winding on.

Dick stopped again, a horrible fear coming over him.

“I’m lost already. That’s what’s the matter,” he muttered. “What in the world am I to do?”

And, indeed, the situation was anything but pleasant.

The little moonlight which found its way down into the canyon did no more than to enable Dick to keep from stumbling.

The entrances to all the cross canyons looked alike. It was the easiest thing in the world to mistake one for the other and Dick knew that this was just what he must have done.

He hurriedly retraced his steps, trying to determine which of the many openings was the correct one and at last settled upon one a little wider than the rest and undertook to follow that.

He was doomed to disappointment, however, for after going a short distance down on the down grade the trail through the canyon suddenly began to ascend, growing steeper and steeper every moment, but Dick continued to follow it, for he could see more light ahead and a cold damp wind came rushing down the canyon and both of these signs made him fancy that he must be pretty close to the lake.

“If I can only strike it I don’t want anything better,” he thought; “then all I’ve got to do is to follow the shore around till I come to the camp.”

He had not far to go before he knew that he was right, for suddenly he passed out of the canyon and came upon the shore of the lake.

Within a few rods of the end of the canyon stood an old, ruinous log hut, in the window of which a light burned.

There were four horses hobbled near-by cropping the grass which grew over a level stretch that extended back toward the rocks, being the only trace of any green thing which Dick had seen since he entered the Bad Lands.

“That’s where they are,” he muttered. “I’ve run them down at last.”

He hesitated a moment and then started to walk over to the hut.

“I’m bound to help that girl if I can,” thought Dick. “Those fellows are such a lot of cowards that——”

Suddenly two hands were clapped upon his shoulders from behind and Dick found himself whirled violently around to face Martin Mudd.

“That’s the talk. Glad you came around,” chuckled the man. “It’s dollars in my pocket to do you up, Dick Darrell, and don’t you forget it you are going to be done.”

CHAPTER VIII.
A NEW ARRIVAL FROM THE LAKE.

If Dick had been fool enough to show fight then there is no doubt that he would have been killed outright, for the man Mudd got him by the throat with his left hand and at the same time tried his old game of whipping out a knife and holding it over Dick’s heart.

“Hold on!” cried Dick. “Hold on, there, Mr. Mudd. Aren’t you making a mistake?”

Dick spoke with amazing calmness considering the circumstances.

No one to have heard him would have dreamed of the excitement he was laboring under just then.

“No mistake at all,” laughed Mudd. “Mebbe you think I am mad?”

“You act that way. I don’t know you and you can’t possibly know me. I’m only a poor assistant in the National Museum. If you are working for money I don’t see where you expect to gain anything by sticking that knife into me.”

This remark and the coolness with which it was uttered undoubtedly saved Dick’s life.

Martin Mudd immediately changed his tune.

“Say,” he exclaimed, “you give me an idea, young feller. I am working for money every time and the man who bids the highest for my services is the man who gets them—mebbe you’d like to bid.”

“I’ll make a bid for my life, you bet,” said Dick. “Suppose you explain the situation. I’ll be blest if I understand it at all.”

“That’s business,” replied Mr. Mudd, looking over at the hut; “just drop that gun of yours while I hold you as you are. Don’t try to use it on me now, boy, for if you do by the piper who played before Moses I’ll bury this knife in your heart.”

Dick threw the revolver down on the ground. There was no chance to use it with that terrible grip on his throat.

“That’s right,” said Mudd, kicking the revolver off to some distance. “Now we can talk. Promise me that you won’t make a move and I’ll let go your throat.”

“I promise,” said Dick. “There’s no sense in our quarreling. We don’t know each other. What I want to find out is what all this is about.”

Martin Mudd let go and leaned back against the rocks, indulging in a hearty laugh.

“Of course we don’t know each other—that’s got nothing to do with it,” he said. “Now, look here, young Darrell, suppose I could put you in the way of picking up a big fortune—say a million and over. What about that?”

“Honestly?” asked Dick.

“Yes, honestly. Oh, I’m not joking. I’m in dead earnest. How much will you give?”

“I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars the day I come into the money,” replied Dick, but when he said it he had not the faintest notion that Martin Mudd’s singular words were anything more than a bluff.

“Humph! Well, that’s business, but perhaps you’ll make it more.”

“A hundred thousand dollars is a good lump of money,” said Dick. “You were going to explain about this. Do it, and——”

“Not now. You are the highest bidder by a lot. Will you sign a paper to that effect?”

“Certainly I will if you will let me read it before I sign.”

“You shall draw it up yourself.”

“That’s satisfactory. Now what?”

“Where’s your camp? You were coming up here monster hunting. I know. Thought you would find that big prehistoric monster Ike Izard claimed to have seen. Ha! Ha! What fools your scientists are.”

“Not quite so big fools as you may think,” replied Dick. “I’ve seen that same monster all right.”

“Rats! Rubbish! Come on to the hut. We’ll talk this thing over. I—merciful mother of Moses! Look there!”

Suddenly the water of Izard Lake, close to where they stood, began to boil in the same old fashion, and all at once a huge head, shaped like a crocodile’s, was thrust out.

It was not the Plesiosaurus at all, but a monster of an entirely different sort.

Its vast body was covered with great scales, its huge eyes seemed to reflect back the moonlight. It opened its cavernous mouth fully a yard long and uttered a hissing roar which seemed to shake the very earth as it made a rush shoreward, directly for the place where Dick and Martin Mudd stood.

The effect was to break up Dick’s little session with that eccentric individual on the instant, for Mudd gave a wild yell of terror, took to his heels and ran toward the hut, leaving Dick to shift for himself.

But Dick was not running away.

He was altogether too much interested in this wonderful monster.

Without an instant’s hesitation he scrambled up on the rocks behind him, stopping and looking back when he had gained a flat ledge about ten feet up from the ground.

Undoubtedly he then witnessed a sight which no other man had ever seen before, unless it might be some Indian wandering through this part of the Bad Lands.

Without paying the least attention to Dick the monster came up out of the water entirely and went waddling along the shore on four little stumpy legs, dragging behind it a thick, scaly tail fully thirty feet in length and taking his course toward the hut.

Martin Mudd looked back and saw it coming. The hut door flew open and Bill Struthers and the man Tony came rushing out.

“Gee whiz! What’s that? Have I got ’em again?” Tony yelled and he made a bee line for the horses.

“Not without me. I don’t stay here none now,” shouted Struthers, following him.

“Hold on. Hold on, you fools. Get your guns and shoot the critter. Don’t go off and leave me so,” Martin Mudd called out at the top of his lungs.

But his companions paid no attention to him.

Cutting the hobbles, they flung themselves on their horses and went dashing up the lake shore.

Mudd paused for a moment, looked back and hesitated.

At the same instant the lake monster treated him to another taste of that tremendous hissing roar, alongside of which the bellow of the Plesiosaurus was sweet music.

It was too much for Mr. Mudd. He went bounding toward the remaining horses, which stood half paralyzed with fear.

In a moment he was astride one of them and dashing away after the others, while the monster, without altering its course, kept steadily on toward the hut.

“Great Scott! What’s going to become of Clara Eglinton?” thought Dick. “Is she tied up in there a prisoner all alone?”

CHAPTER IX.
WHAT MONSTER IS COMING NOW?

No such thought as fear, no idea of holding back, ever entered Dick Darrell’s head.

He scrambled down off the rocks and ran at full speed over the grass, giving that moving nightmare a wide berth and by a semi-circular course making for the hut.

The monster moved very slowly, seeming to have but slight powers of locomotion on land, although Dick never doubted that in the water it would show itself lively enough.

“If it was to rise up on that tail and fall on the hut it would crush it to splinters,” thought Dick, “but I don’t believe it has any such idea.”

He had almost reached the hut now. There was no back door, as he had expected to see, so he started to run around in front.

He had almost gained the door when, to his astonishment, he suddenly heard his name shouted from off on the lake.

“Dick! Dick!”

Dick turned and faced the monster, and, looking over and beyond him, saw Charley paddling the rubber canoe for all he was worth.

“Hello, Dick! What in thunder are you doing there?” yelled Charley. “Look on the shore! Don’t you see?”

Bang! Bang!

At the same instant two rifle shots rang out in quick succession and Dick saw Doctor Dan running along the shore toward the monster.

He fired again as Dick caught sight of him. The bullet struck the monster’s tail, but glanced off as though it had come against an iron wall.

The shots, however, had their effect, for the report of the gun seemed to startle the huge creature.

It stopped, turned its head and looked back, and, with another roar, waddled to the water and slipped in with a tremendous splash, the commotion nearly swamping the rubber canoe, which Charley drove up on the beach heedless of any ill effect the sharp stones might have on the bottom.

An instant later and it was all over.

The monster had disappeared and Dick, Doctor Dan and Charley Nicholson stood together on the shore.

We pass over the explanations which naturally followed.

Charley was fairly wild with joy at the meeting.

“I gave you up for dead, sure,” he said, “but Doctor Dan wouldn’t have it. It was he who insisted upon getting the canoe out and coming to look for you. What sort of a creature was it, Dick? I thought I must have gone mad when I first saw it crawling up on the shore.”

But Dick was in no mood to talk science then.

He hastily explained about Clara and they hurried toward the hut, fully expecting to find her a prisoner inside.

To their astonishment the hut proved to be unoccupied.

There could be no mistake about it, either, for the interior consisted of but a single room.

There were several bunks against the wall and on a table in the middle of the room was a whisky bottle and three glasses, but there was absolutely nothing to show that Clara had ever been there.

“Well, where’s your girl, Dick?” asked Charley, staring around.

“Strange. That horse out there is certainly the one she rode,” replied Dick, and the horrible fear seized him that Martin Mudd might have made way with Clara on the road up to the lake.

They searched in all directions, shouting Miss Eglinton’s name, but all to no purpose.

Then they returned to the hut and began discussing the new monster, as a matter of course.

“In some respects it resembles the Ichthyosaurus,” said Dick, “but still its short legs don’t fill the bill at all in that direction. It is probably entirely unknown to science.”

“And immensely valuable if it could only be taken alive,” said Dr. Dan.

“I wish I had either one of those monsters in a tank in New York or Chicago and could charge ten cents a head to show them,” cried Charley. “I shouldn’t want any better fortune than that.”

“They can never be taken alive,” said Dick, decidedly. “It is the merest nonsense to think of such a thing. This is a wonderful place, though, Doc. If the National Museum will only take possession of this lake there may be money in these discoveries for some of us yet.”

“Do you think they will?” asked Doctor Dan.

“I’m sure of it. The land must belong to the government as it is.”

“It undoubtedly does,” replied the guide. “Well, there may be something in it for Ike Izard and myself, after all. Now, then, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t leave here till I know what has become of Miss Eglinton,” said Dick, decidedly.

“Let me see,” said Dr. Dan. “I know that name. She must be the daughter of Colonel Eglinton, who owns a big gold mine back here in the mountains over toward the Black Hills.”

“No doubt of it, from what I heard that fellow Mudd say,” replied Dick. “But let’s think what we had better do.”

Doctor Dan gave one of his short laughs. “If you want to find her I can tell you how,” he said.

“Tell it, then, for gracious sake!” cried Charley.

“Mount that horse, turn his head toward the canyon and give him free rein. I’ll bet you what you like he’ll take you straight to the place where they halted. If you knew these mustangs of ours as well as I do you would say the same thing.”

“It’s a splendid idea and we’ll try it right now!” cried Dick. “Shall we pack the canoe on behind the saddle?”

“I think we had better. It may hold three but it will never hold four in case we find the girl. I can work my way back to camp through the canyons all right, don’t you be afraid of that.”

Doctor Dan then caught the horse, which Dick mounted, after the canoe had been folded up and placed behind the saddle.

He then started, Charley and Doctor Dan following behind.

Dick threw the bridle down on the horse’s neck and the sure-footed little mustang walked straight toward the entrance of the canyon, but instead of turning into it, kept on under the cliffs.

“Hello! It seems they didn’t come the way you thought they did after all!” exclaimed Doctor Dan; “probably there is another canyon just beyond here and——”

“Gee! There it comes again!” broke out Charley, pointing off on the lake.

The water had begun a furious commotion close to the shore.

Dick stopped the horse and all remained staring at it for a minute or more, but as yet nothing appeared.

CHAPTER X.
EXPLORING AROUND THE LAKE.

If Dick and Doctor Dan expected to see a new monster come up out of the lake that was the time they got left.

Charley said from the first that nothing was coming and he was right.

“It’s not old P. D.,” he declared; “that isn’t the way he boils the pot.”

Doctor Dan looked a bit puzzled.

“Might I inquire,” he asked in his stately way, “what you mean by old P. D.?”

“Why, certainly,” replied Charley. “Life is altogether too short to say Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus every time and even Plesiosaurus without the doli-what’s-its-name takes too long, so from this time on I shall speak of our rubber-necked friend as old P. D.”

“Exactly,” said Doctor Dan. “Now that I know I shall remember. I am not familiar with the scientific names of these monsters. I expect to see something. Watch! It will come. On this very spot Ike Izard and I saw the water boil like this.”

“And nothing came of it?” asked Charley.

“Nothing then. The monster did not rise.”

“No, nor no monster will rise this time,” said Charley, emphatically. “You’ll see.”

“I think I know what you are driving at,” said Dick. “You are thinking of the underground lake we talked about.”

Charley nodded.

Doctor Dan looked puzzled, not understanding what that had to do with the boiling of the water which still continued.

They watched the troubled surface of the lake for several minutes.

The boiling grew less and less until finally it ceased altogether, nothing having appeared.

“There you are,” said Charley, triumphantly. “Just as I said.”

“Your idea is, I suppose,” said Dick, “that the water is running off into the underground lake?”

“My idea is,” said Charley, “that under the mountain on the left here is a big cavern at a lower level than this lake and that between it and the lake is a deep hole. When the hole is full of water it discharges into the cavern gradually by a small outlet, when it gets down to a certain level the water of Izard Lake runs down into the hole until the equilibrium is restored.”

“Right,” said Dick. “Just what I think, exactly.”

“It’s too deep for me,” said Doctor Dan, shaking his head.

“What, the theory or the hole?” laughed Dick.

“Both. I should have to see the hole before I believed in it and I don’t understand the theory of all.”

“If we could only stay here and watch we would find that the boiling takes place at regular intervals and continues just so long,” added Charley. “We can investigate this later on if you say so, Dick.”

“By all means,” replied Dick, “but now we must be on the move. I shall never rest until I have found Clara Eglinton and I only hope Doctor Dan’s theory proves correct.”

“About the horse?” replied Doctor Dan. “You will find it entirely correct. If I am not up on science I am on horses. Give that mare her head and she will take us to the place where they turned off with the lady sure; that is, if there is any such place. As I understand the situation, you are not actually sure that Mudd captured her at all.”

“Well, I have only his word for it,” said Dick, “and that don’t amount to much, I own.”

They now moved on. The mare led the way into the pass through which Dick had come, continuing along about half the distance to the trail up the mountain, when she suddenly turned and stopped short up against the solid ledge.

“Well!” exclaimed Doctor Dan, “this is queer!”

The place into which the mare had turned was a sort of niche in the rocky wall, crescent shaped and perhaps forty feet deep.

There was no break anywhere and the rocks towered to a height of several hundred feet above their heads.

“What’s the matter with the beast? What does she stop here for?” demanded Dick.

But Doctor Dan could give no satisfactory answer to this question.

He dismounted and made a long and careful examination of the place without discovering anything to explain the conduct of the mare.

“It beats me,” he said at last, “but one thing is certain there is no way through that ledge.”

“Perhaps they just halted here for some purpose or other,” said Dick. “I think we had better push on. The mare may give us another steer.”

But the mare did nothing of the sort. They continued on to the trail and then down the mountain to the alkali plains.

Doctor Dan’s knowledge of the country came in play here, for he recognized the place and led the way to their old trail up the mountain, which began about half a mile further along.

It seemed useless to spend any more time then looking for Clara Eglinton, so they continued on to the camp, where Doctor Dan cooked a splendid breakfast, having shot an antelope just before they turned off from the plain.

The remainder of the day passed without any notable adventure.

In the afternoon the rubber boat was launched again and Dick and Charley pulled across the lake to the hut, leaving Doctor Dan to go on an exploring expedition along the shore on his own account.

The hut was still deserted and there was no sign that Mudd and his companions had returned.

The boys on the way back pulled around to the place where the singular boiling of the water had occurred.

All was placid enough now, but just as they were turning away the boiling began again.

The boys watched it until it ceased, the time being exactly ten minutes.

After it was over they waited around for half an hour more, but the phenomenon was not repeated.

“We must come over and spend the day here soon,” declared Dick. “My theory is that if an underground lake really exists that is where old P. D. and the other monster have their holdout and we must contrive some way to get down into it. Maybe the underground passage I went through connects with your cavern, Charley. What do you say to following it up and trying to find out?”

“That’s the idea, exactly,” said Charley. “We know from your discovery that there is a small underground lake, so what’s to hinder there being a big one? We’ll take that in to-morrow and the event will prove that I am right.”

On the way back to camp Charley thought that he caught sight of the head of old P. D. lifted for a single instant above the water, but Dick did not see it and Charley could not feel quite sure.

When they got back to camp they found that Doctor Dan had already returned and had supper ready.

“I’ve got great news to tell you, boys,” he exclaimed. “I’ve seen old P. D. again and this time on the land. What do you say to that?”

“Hooray!” cried Dick. “Here’s another discovery of the habits of old P. D. It gives me hope that we may succeed in capturing him yet.”

“There’s a chance for us,” said Doctor Dan, “and I can show you just how it can be done if you will follow me around the lake shore to a place where I was to-day.”

He had scarcely made the remark when the same old bellow was heard off on the lake.

All hands ran down to the shore and looked off upon the water, but not a thing could they see of old P. D.

CHAPTER XI.
THE LETTER ON THE TABLE.

“He’s around here somewhere,” said Dick. “There’s no mistaking that melodious voice, but where?”

Suddenly another strange sound broke upon the air; half scream, half roar, and then a tremendous splash was heard over in the direction of the next cove.

The boys and Doctor Dan, seizing their rifles, ran that way, but before they got to the bend of the rocks they were able to see what was going on.

It was such a combat as probably no man on earth ever witnessed before.

There was old P. D. and a monster precisely similar to the one the boys had seen on the other side of the lake hard at it, and a bellowing and roaring broke upon the air that was fairly deafening.

The Plesiosaurus would rear its ugly head far above the water and strike with lightning rapidity at its antagonist, which would dodge and then dart forward, squirting up two vast streams of water out of holes in each side of its huge snout, snapping its crocodile-like jaws and displaying its terrible teeth.

For about twenty seconds the boys were treated to this wonderful exhibition and then, with a fearful splash, monster No. 2 leaped half its length out of the water, caught old P. D. by the neck and dragged him down out of sight.

“By gracious!” cried Charley. “That’s great!”

“Tremendous!” echoed Dick. “Who on earth ever saw the like?”

“I’ll bet on old P. D. every time,” chuckled Doctor Dan, relaxing his gravity for once and indulging in a hearty laugh. “It don’t seem to strike you as comical as it does me, boys. It’s one of the funniest things I ever saw.”

Dick failed to see where the laugh came in, but he said nothing and for some time they stood watching for the reappearance of the monsters, but the moments passed and they did not come to the surface again.

“There must be more than one Plesiosaurus,” remarked Dick, as they sat at supper; “by the way, Doctor, you were going to tell us of your discovery and how we could capture old P. D.”

“Why, there is a cove around on the western shore that has a very narrow entrance,” replied Doctor Dan. “There are great stones scattered all around there and there is one that I am sure would choke up the entrance if it was dropped between the ledges. Now if we could rig up some sort of a snare in the cove with the ropes we have brought and then pry the boulder over into the break and choke it up we would have our friend P. D. hard and fast.”

“Always providing he is obliging enough to go into the cove and run into our snare,” said Dick. “Well, we will take a look at it in the morning and see what we can make out of it. I’m dead tired now and I’m going to turn in.”

The tents had been moved further up the bank and as Doctor Dan had agreed to watch until morning Dick and Charley now wrapped themselves up in their blankets and put in a good night undisturbed.

Doctor Dan had no news to report in the morning and after breakfast he went up on the ledges, wrapped himself in his blankets and went to sleep there, telling the boys that they need not trouble their heads about him, but just do whatever they pleased.

“Let’s try the underground passage, Dick,” said Charley. “I’m wild to know if my theory is correct.”

“If I knew where we could dive and strike it I’d say yes in a minute,” replied Dick, “but I could never locate the place and I don’t care about running the horses around to the other trail without Doctor Dan.”

“I suppose that means we are to go across the lake again and see what we can find of the girl?”

“That’s what we ought to do.”

“Then by all means let’s do it. Duty first and pleasure afterward. How long do you intend to stop up here, anyhow?”

“Oh, a day or two. If we fail entirely I think I shall try to persuade Doctor Dan to take me on to Mr. Eglinton’s mine and see if Clara is safe there.”

“That means time lost. How about telegraphing Professor Poynter?”

“We can do that from the mine just as well as from Node Ranch. No doubt there is a line through to there.”

“The girl is a nuisance,” declared Charley. “I really believe you are ready to fall in love with her, Dick.”

“I’m ready to help her if she needs help and to save her from that scoundrel Mudd,” declared Dick, “but don’t let’s do any more talking until we have made a start.”

The boat was soon stretched and the seats placed and the boys then carried it down to the lake and got in.

It was not a pleasant craft to navigate, but Charley had become quite skillful with the paddle and they were soon making good headway across the lake.

“If we happen to run into old P. D. or his enemy there’s going to be an interesting time of it,” observed Dick. “You don’t say a word about that, Charley, but I know you are thinking about it all the same.”

“And why not?” replied Charley. “Of course I’m thinking about it, but what’s the use talking? We have just got to take our chances. When I’m out on an expedition like this I don’t believe in showing the white feather. It isn’t my style nor yours, either, Dick.”

“If it was mine you bet I wouldn’t be here,” said Dick, “but the danger is real just the same.”

Charley paddled on until at last they reached the other side of the lake and pulled up their boat on the shore close to the hut.

It still wore the same air of desertion. Dick had left the door partly open and had placed a small pebble on top of it in such a manner that if the door was touched the stone would be sure to fall.

He seized hold of the door and pulled it open, but no pebble fell.

“There’s been some one here!” he exclaimed. “Look, Charley, the floor is all tracked over with alkali since we were here.”

“That’s what, Dick. If it was mud, now, we might guess it was your friend.”

“Ten to one it was Mudd,” replied Dick. “Hello, what’s this?”

In the middle of the long table which occupied the centre of the room lay a paper upon which some words were written, fastened to the table by a rusty old bowie knife which had been driven deep into the wood.

“That’s yours, Dick,” cried Charley. “Don’t you see what it says?”

“For you, Dick Darrell,” were the words scrawled over the paper in letters at least six inches long.

CHAPTER XII.
INTO THE BOILING POT.

“That’s Mudd’s work, sure,” exclaimed Dick, and he pulled out the knife and picked the paper up, turning it over and finding the following written on the other side:

“Friends or enemies—which?—I swore to kill you. On certain conditions I am willing to let you live—$100,000—you understand—but we can’t get together by keeping apart. Shall I come to you or will you come to me? I shall be in this hut at midnight and alone and you must come alone if you want to meet me. It will pay you, Dick Darrell, and you need fear nothing. If you do not come I shall take it to mean that I shall come to you. It will be too late to talk about the $100,000 then, for when I come I come to kill. Yours any way you like to take me, Mudd.”

“Well!” exclaimed Charley, for Dick had been reading aloud, “that’s a most remarkable communication. What on earth does it all mean?”

“Rubbish!” cried Dick. “He must think I am a born idiot. Still it shows the fellow is watching us.”

“I don’t know about that. There may be more in it than you think for. Are you going to do as he says?”

“Well, I think I see myself,” laughed Dick. “If he wants to come to me let him try it. I’m ready for him.”

“I wouldn’t do it that way. I’d come to the hut and let me and Doctor Dan hang around somewhere. If we could once capture Mr. Martin Mudd his name would be mud for fair and we could find out then exactly what has become of the girl.”

“Well, I’ll think it over,” said Dick. “Come on now and let’s have a look at the boiling pot.”

This was the name the boys had given to the point on the lake which so interested Charley and they now went back into the boat and paddled along the shore until they came to the place.

The water was now as calm here as elsewhere and showed no signs of disturbance.

After pulling around a few moments Dick paddled ashore, declaring that he was going to look up the footprints of the monster and measure them.

“You don’t need any help, I suppose,” said Charley. “I’ll stay out here. I want to watch the pot.”

“They say a watched pot never boils,” laughed Dick, “but I’ve no objections to you trying to prove it. Of course I don’t need any help. It won’t take me five minutes, anyhow.”

So Dick hurried along the shore, while Charley paddled out on the lake again. There was no difficulty in finding the impress of the monster’s huge feet in the sand and Dick got out his rule and was in the act of measuring them when all at once a shout from Charley called his attention to the lake.

“She boils, Dick! She boils!” cried Charley.

“Look out!” shouted Dick, running down to the shore. “Don’t go too near. There may be some suction there.”

“By Jove, there is a big suction,” answered Charley, “and what’s more I’m right in it now.”

He commenced to paddle furiously and perhaps he thought he was making some headway, but Dick saw that he was not.

“Jump out, Charley!” he shouted. “Jump and save yourself.”

“I can do it! I can do it!” Charley replied, working the paddle more vigorously than ever.

Meanwhile the water was boiling furiously—more than it had done at any time yet.

Dick was terribly alarmed. He was standing now on a point of rocks directly over the boiling pot and all at once, to his horror, he saw the boat half double up and go shooting into the middle of this miniature maelstrom.

“I’m a goner!” yelled Charley, and he tumbled out of the boat.

But he was too late to save himself.

Like a flash the boat disappeared beneath the water.

Charley made a noble effort to save himself, but the suction was too much for him.

“Oh, Dick!” he cried suddenly, and then threw up his hands and was gone.

Dick hesitated just one instant—no more.

Without even stopping to throw off his coat he took a header into the boiling pot, disappearing like a flash.

It seemed a piece of mad folly.

How could he hope to rescue Charley under such circumstances as these?

But Dick never gave that a thought. He would have jumped in just the same if he had known that he was jumping to his death.

Down he went—down—down—drawn deeper every second by that terrible pull.

“I’m a goner,” he thought “I can’t help myself,” and his heart began to fail him as he was still drawn on and on, deeper into the boiling pot.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE WONDERFUL CAVERN.

Holding his breath and still being dragged downward by that terrible suction, Dick Darrell gave himself up for lost.

His only hope was that his previous experience under the lake might be repeated.

And in a different way this is just what happened. Dick was brought up with a round turn before he knew it.

Suddenly the suction ceased and he went shooting forward; the next he knew his head was out of water and he was swimming for all he was worth down a swiftly flowing stream.

He was now in a mighty cavern and it was comparatively light.

Above him was the roof with immense stalactites hanging down like great icicles; the wall on his left was covered with the same glittering white formation; on the right the cave extended off into the distance further than the eye could reach; on ahead there was no roof, the cavern being open to the sky for a space of several hundred feet, which admitted light and air and enabled Dick to take in his surroundings.

It was a truly wonderful place. Doubtless the opening was at some inaccessible point far up on the top of the mountain. It was at least a hundred feet up from the floor of the cavern and nothing without wings could hope to reach it.

The stream rushed on with tremendous rapidity and Dick, feeling that he might be swept into a worse place, made all possible haste to get ashore, something not to be accomplished without difficulty, but at last he managed it, and, wet to the skin and gasping for breath, he sank down upon the sand and lay there, scarcely caring whether he lived or died.

This state of things lasted only for a few moments, however.

Dick’s strength soon returned and he scrambled to his feet and gave the peculiar shout which had been agreed upon as a signal between Charley and himself.

There was so answer, although Dick shouted again and again. Still he did not give up hope now, for it was easy to imagine that Charley might have been swept on further and still have escaped.

Dick ran on, calling, wild with anxiety, but nevertheless keeping cool, until at length he came under the opening, where he halted from sheer exhaustion and again sank down upon the sand.

“This won’t do,” he thought. “I must brace up. I escaped before and I shall escape again. It’s a wonder that these underground outlets don’t drain the lake off. I’ve seen two of them now and I believe there are others. Hello! What’s that on ahead?”

The sun struck down through the big hole in the roof of the cavern and far in the distance there seemed to be a curious shimmering of light.

“It’s a lake—that’s what it is—an underground lake, just as Charley said,” thought Dick. “I’ll make for it, only I must get the water out of my clothes.”

He hurriedly undressed and wrung his wet clothing out as dry as possible, dressing himself as soon as he had finished.

“I suppose I shall get my death of cold either way,” he thought “so I might as well put my clothes on as to leave them off. Now for the lake. Nothing like a good run to warm a fellow up in a case like this.”

He ran with all his might, coming in a few moments out upon the shore of a broad sheet of water, which extended off as far as the eye could penetrate into the darkness.

The cavern was of vast proportions. Dick could see no walls on either side now, and as the lake cut off further advance, his heart sank, for how could he hope to escape from this strange place? The case seemed hopeless, indeed.

As Dick stood there on the shore of the lake wondering what he ought to do, his attention was suddenly attracted by seeing in the distance a shadowy form hurrying toward him along the shore.

“Charley! Charley! That you, Charley?” he shouted, starting off on the run again.

The shadow halted and stood motionless, but there was no response.

“It’s not Charley,” thought Dick. “If it was he would certainly answer. Who can it be? By gracious, it’s a woman! Hello, there! Hello! Don’t be afraid of me! I’ll not do you any harm.”

The shadow had turned and started to run away, but seeming to be reassured by Dick’s cry, stopped again and now waited for him to come up.

As Dick drew nearer he almost forgot Charley in the excitement which came over him as he recognized Clara Eglinton.

“Who is it?” she called out. “What do you want with me? I won’t go back! No, I won’t!”

“Miss Eglinton! Don’t you know me?” cried Dick.

She recognized him the instant he spoke.

“Oh, Mr. Darrell!” she exclaimed. “What ever brought you here? Oh, I am so thankful to see you! I—I——”

She paused and burst into a passion of tears.

Dick caught her in his arms and spoke such soothing words as came first to his tongue.

“I am here to help you,” he said, “although my coming here is only the result of an accident. Tell me about yourself. What brought you here and how is it that you are alone?”

“It was that scoundrel Mudd!” replied the girl. “He has held me a prisoner in this dreadful place since his tools captured me on the mountain night before last. They have a camp down here, Mr. Darrell. I’ve been a close prisoner until about an hour ago, when I managed to get away and—oh, oh! There comes that dreadful noise again! What is it? Oh, what is it?”

In her excitement she clutched Dick’s arm and begged him to protect her, and there was nothing strange about her excitement either, for an awful bellowing was heard off on the lake, echoing and re-echoing back from the rocky walls of the cavern until the whole atmosphere reverberated with the frightful sound.

But it did not disturb Dick a bit. He knew very well that it was only the Plesiosaurus.

This underground lake then had its monster as well as the one above. Of course, Dick had given up the idea that there was only one P. D. He knew that there must be many and if Charley had only been safe with him he would have rejoiced in the discovery.

As it was he hastily explained to Clara what the noise really meant and as the bellowing continued they stood there looking off on the lake watching for the Plesiosaurus to appear.

“We may not see it at all,” said Dick. “There! It has stopped. No doubt it has gone under the water and—oh, Charley! Charley! This way! Here I am! It’s Dick! Hello! Hello!”

Suddenly Charley’s shout was heard in the distance and Dick lost no time in answering.

At the same instant there was a rushing sound on the water right in front of them and the same old monstrous head came up out of the lake.

Clara screamed and threw her arms about Dick.

Higher and higher the head was thrust up as the neck of the monster came out of the water.

Then came the frightful bellow once more and the head of the monster came darting toward them.

Flinging a protecting arm about Clara, Dick drew her hastily back and they ran for their lives.

CHAPTER XIV.
LOST UNDERGROUND.

The Plesiosaurus made no attempt to come up out of the water.

Once more it gave its strange cry and Dick, looking around, saw its huge back come up into view, and, with its long neck arched like a swan, it sailed away over the lake and was soon lost to view in the darkness.

Dick and Clara had now stopped running and stood looking off over the lake watching the strange creature as it sailed away.

“I ought to be ashamed of myself for being so timid, Mr. Darrell,” said Clara. “But I have had such a dreadful time that my nerves are all shaken. What is that creature? I didn’t suppose anything like it existed on earth.”

“And I don’t believe there is such a thing existing anywhere else,” replied Dick. “I’ll tell you all about it in a few moments. My friend is coming. I’ve got such a lot to tell you. Do you know I almost wonder that you remember my name—you only saw me for a moment that night in Washington.”

“Indeed, I am not likely to forget your bravery then,” replied Clara, “nor what you tried to do for me on the mountain the other night.”

“Hello, Dick! Hello! Hello! Where are you?” Charley’s welcome voice was heard shouting, although as yet he had not appeared.

Dick had paused several times in his conversation to give Charley the call and he now did so again.

In a moment they caught sight of a shadow coming along the shore of the lake and soon Charley, with his clothes as badly saturated as Dick’s, came hurrying up.

It was a joyful meeting and the next ten minutes were devoted to explanations and telling their respective stories.

Charley’s experience had been just the same as Dick’s, except that he was swept into the lake and had a hard job getting ashore, as he had become greatly exhausted.

“Lucky old P. D. didn’t rise near me or I should have been a goner,” he said. “Strange you didn’t hear me holler, Dick. I kept it up all the time.”

“So did I,” replied Dick, “but we must have been a long way apart at the beginning. Now, Charley, what is to be done? Here we three are in this hole and the thing is to get out as quick as ever we can, but for the life of me I don’t see how we are going to do it without running into Mudd and his gang.”

Clara had explained her situation fully by this time. It appeared that she had been on her way to the mine her father owned in the neighborhood of the Black Hills, the man Bill Struthers having been sent down to the railroad to meet her and guide her through the Bad Lands to the mine.

Mudd, she declared, was a man whom her father had used in his business, but had to discharge on account of dishonesty. “He’s a thorough scoundrel,” Clara went on to say; “he swore to be avenged on father and this is the way he has taken to do it. He brought me here and sent Bill in to tell father that the horse ran away with me and was lost. They expect father will offer a big reward to the man who finds me and I know they mean to trump up a story about my being captured by Indians and held for ransom. When they have got all the money they can out of father I suppose they mean to let me go.”

They kept on talking thus until Dick called a halt by making the remark quoted above.

“I’m blest if I see how we are going to get out,” said Charley. “We can’t go back up through the boiling pot, that’s certain. Perhaps Miss Eglinton will tell us how she was brought down into the cave.”

“Oh, I thought I told you about that!” exclaimed Clara.

“You certainly didn’t,” answered Dick “I’ve been waiting for a chance to ask you.”

“It’s easily explained, but, see here, boys, as we have been thrown together in this strange way we want to be as good friends as possible. I’m Clara to all my friends and that’s what you must call me.”

“I agree to that, providing you return the compliment,” replied Dick. “Now, don’t you worry. We are going to get out of this trouble and you are going back to camp with us. Our guide, Doctor Dan, knows every inch of the Bad Lands and we will start for your father’s mine at once and won’t leave you until you are safe in his hands.”

Clara was very grateful and she went on to tell how, after her capture, Mudd had blindfolded her for a few moments, halting for that purpose in a rocky glen, as she called it.

In this condition she had been led down some steps and when the handkerchief was removed from her eyes she found herself underground, being hurried along a narrow passage, which finally led them into the cave, where later the man Tony came, bringing the horses, which seemed to have come down by another way.

Later all three of the men rode off and were gone some time, but Mudd and Tony soon came riding back again. Since then they had been coming and going, Clara herself being kept a close prisoner until this morning, when she managed to slip the cords off her hands, and, as none of the three were in the camp at the time, she made her escape and had wandered about the cavern until she met Dick.

“What we have got to do, then,” said Dick, “is to get back to that camp and see what we can find out about these different ways in and out of the cave. I wouldn’t wonder a bit, Charley, if Doctor Dan was right after all and that horse did lead us to the very spot where Clara was blindfolded. It was just such a place as she describes.”

“Must we go back there,” said Clara. “I’d rather do almost anything else. You can’t imagine how I dread being captured by those men again and you know what Mudd has been to you, Dick.”

“I don’t, but I wish I did,” replied Dick. “I can’t make the man out at all. In one breath he threatens to kill me and in the next he is talking about making me a millionaire. I believe he’s crazy, if you want to know really what I think.”

It seemed entirely necessary to go back to the camp, however, so Clara undertook to guide them to the place.

From the first Dick felt his doubts about her being able to do it, for she turned away from the lake after they had advanced along the shore for a short distance and soon they were in a part of the cavern where it was so dark that they could scarcely see a foot ahead of them.

For an hour or more they wandered about.

For a long time Clara had been very silent, only speaking when one of the boys directly addressed her.

At length she stopped short, exclaiming:

“It is no use, boys. I can’t find the place. We are lost here underground!”

CHAPTER XV.
MR. MUDD TURNS UP AGAIN.

“Now, that’s all right!” exclaimed Dick. “Until you were ready to give up, Clara, I didn’t want to say a word, but I think I can pilot the way to the camp.”

“How, when you have never been there?” asked Clara. “Oh, I feel so ashamed of myself. I thought I could lead you straight back to it. Don’t be angry with me, Dick.”

“As though I could be,” exclaimed Dick. “You have done your best and now if you give it up let me have my try.”

“What do you mean to do?” asked Charley. “Upon my word, I’m all turned around myself.”

“I’ll show you,” replied Dick. “First we want to get back where we started out. It’s easy enough to do that.”

“I couldn’t do it,” said Clara. “I’ll own up that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last half hour, but I just seemed to lead you round and round in a circle.”

“I’ll fix it,” said Dick, confidently. “Come this way.”

He started off in directly the opposite direction to that which they had been following.

“Oh, I see!” cried Clara. “I understand now. You are going toward the light.”

“Exactly,” replied Dick. “The light comes down through that hole in the roof and the underground river and the lake are right there and that’s where we have got to look for the trail.”

“I saw no trail,” said Charley. “I looked for that when we started out.”

“It’s there and we’ll find it. Doctor Dan has given me some good pointers on trails. Trust an Indian for that. He’ll find a footprint where a white man could see nothing. We shall soon be back at the lake and then I’ll show you how well I’ve learned my lesson.”

In a short time Dick brought up at the lake and soon found the spot where he had encountered Clara.

“Now there you are!” he exclaimed, after bending down and examining the sand, which was pretty hard to be sure, but still the faint imprint of Clara’s footsteps could be seen.

“I’m afraid if you expect to follow my course you will have a hard time of it,” said Clara. “I was wandering about a long time before I met you, Dick.”

“I’m not going to,” replied Dick. “I think I can do it without the trail. Tell me, was this camp against the wall of the cave?”

“There were big rocks right back of where we were, if that is what you mean,” replied Clara.

“That’s it. How about the lake?”

“Oh, I saw nothing of the lake until I had been walking around for some time.”

“Would you know the place when you first struck it?”

“I think I should. There was a black rock sticking up out of the water.”

“Very good! Then we’ll go to the black rock. That’s easy found.”

“I thought that I could strike right over to the place,” remarked Clara, as they walked along. “I never had the faintest idea that I was going to get lost.”

“We’ll strike off from the black rock,” said Dick. “When we were following you we kept going around in a circle, but I think I can strike a straight line to the wall; after that it will be dead easy, for all we have got to do is to follow the wall around.”

They soon reached the black rock and Dick again showed them the trail.

Still he did not attempt to follow it, but started off rapidly in the direction which he considered the wall ought to be, and hit it so accurately that within ten minutes they came up against the rocks.

“Why, you are a splendid guide!” exclaimed Clara. “Now, what is to be done?”

“Which way do you think the camp lies?” asked Dick.

Clara pointed to the left and Dick promptly started off to the right.

“I suppose you wonder what I’m doing this for?” he said, “but I happen to know that you are wrong.”

“I’m sure I’m right,” said Clara. “How can you know that I am not?”

“Listen!” replied Dick.

“I hear something like the pawing of a horse,” said Charley.

“That’s exactly it. I heard the sound before we came to the wall. It’s the camp, of course, and what’s more, Martin Mudd or one of his men has returned.”

“For mercy’s sake, don’t expose yourself, Dick,” said Clara. “Tell me what your plan is. I hate to even think of what might happen if you fell into the hands of Mudd.”

“Then don’t think of it, for he is already in the hands of Mudd!” spoke a sneering voice right ahead of them.

Clara screamed and Dick and Charley hastily drew their revolvers, for at the same instant two men armed with rifles sprang out from behind a turn in the rocks, and the foremost man was Mudd.

CHAPTER XVI.
MARTIN MUDD MAKES A SERIOUS CHARGE.

“Throw up nothing!” shouted Dick Darrell when Martin Mudd called out, “Throw up your hands!” and he rushed forward, firing two shots as he went.

This rather took Mudd & Co. by surprise, as they had not expected anything of the sort.

One of the shots went through Mudd’s rusty “tile,” knocking it off his head.

“Oh, I’m shot! I’m shot!” he yelled. “Spare my life, boys!”

Down he fell all in a heap.

Tony had fired one shot, but, seeing Charley rush up to help Dick, letting fly with his revolver as he came, the valiant Tony took to his heels and sprinted off into the depths of the cavern.

Dick lost no time in making Mudd a prisoner.

Clara and Charley lent a hand and with a stout cord, which the latter happened to have in his pocket, they tied the fellow’s hands behind him.

While this was going on Mudd kept up a dreadful racket, calling out in one breath that he was shot and the next begging the boys not to shoot him.

He made so much noise about it that Dick unfeelingly suggested that he was not shot at all and told him he had better hold his tongue.

“Yes I am, too,” growled Mudd. “I know I am. This is a nice way to treat a man who has been deserted by his friend. Miss Clara, you might plead my cause, I think. I was always a good friend of your father’s, as you know very well.”

“What impudence!” exclaimed Clara. “After the way you have used me, too!”

“Don’t see it in that light at all,” returned Mudd. “I haven’t ill used you. Your father owes me money that I can’t collect. I simply detained you until I could collect it—that’s all.”

“If you don’t stop your noise, mister, I’ll put a gag in your mouth!” cried Dick. “Just stand still, will you, and I’ll soon see where you are hurt. Charley, pick up his hat. Clara, hold the lantern. We will straighten this thing out right now.”

It was Mudd’s own lantern, which he dropped when he fell. Clara had picked it up and lighted it again and Dick now made a careful examination of the man, but could find no wound.

“You are not hurt at all,” declared Dick.

“One shot went through his hat,” said Charley.

“It’s a pity it didn’t go through his head,” added Dick. “Now, then, Mr. Mudd, seeing that you know the way out of this place I’ll thank you to show it to us, and be quick about it, do you understand?”

Mudd began to snuffle.

“I’ll do it,” he drawled. “I do it under protest, because I have to do it. I’m a man of very sensitive feelings and I don’t like to be talked rough to like that. I’m like the devil. I’m not as black as I’m painted. I’ve acted in your interest, Dick Darrell, right along.”

“So you say,” replied Dick. “I suppose, of course, you were acting for my interest when you tried to stick a knife into my back in the streets of Washington. Oh, you’re a bird, you are! Travel on and show us the way out of here and hold your tongue or I’ll make you—that’s all!”

Mudd seemed thoroughly cowed. With his hands tied behind him he shuffled on through the cavern.

Dick noticed that he kept in a direct line with the lake and seemed to know just where he was going, which, indeed, proved to be the case, for in a few moments he paused beside what seemed to be a flight of stone steps.

“There’s the way out,” he growled.

“Why, these are regular stairs!” exclaimed Dick.

“It’s right,” said Clara. “I was brought down this way.”

“Of course it’s right,” growled Mudd. “If I may be allowed to speak now, I would like to say that these steps constitute a most important archæological discovery and one which should be communicated to the Smithsonian Institute. Yours truly, Martin Mudd, is the discoverer, so please mention his name in your report. You might call them the Mudd stairs, only that would be rather a misnomer, seeing that they are made of stone.”

“Upon my word, you are the windiest beggar I ever came across,” said Dick. “Who built these stairs, anyway?”

“There you go hurting my feelings again, and without the slightest reason,” retorted Mudd. “To the best of my knowledge and belief they were built by some prehistoric tribe of Indians like the cliff dwellers of the Colorado canyon. Don’t forget to mention my name when you make your report.”

“Oh, I’ll mention your name in my report fast enough—don’t you fret,” replied Dick. “Lead on, Clara. If these steps will take us out of this hole we don’t want to lose any time.”

“There’s a big stone to lift at the top of the flight,” said Mudd. “If you will untie my hands I’ll show you how to work it. You needn’t be afraid that I’ll run away.”

But Dick would have none of his assistance, and, as it proved, it was not needed, for he was easily able to lift the stone himself.

It seemed to move on two dowels set in sockets cut in the ledge; a very clever piece of work, which Dick determined to study into later on.

When they came up into the open air our little party found themselves at the very point where the horse had stopped, proving Doctor Dan to have been entirely right in his conclusions.

They were now free, but with the boat gone it seemed rather a discouraging situation, for night would soon be upon them and to take the long walk through the canyon and down the mountain and then up again on the other trail was not to be thought of at all.

“Mr. Mudd,” said Dick, turning to their prisoner, “you left a note for me in that hut over there by the lake?”

“Ah! So you found it, did you?” replied Mudd. “Well?”

“You asked me to meet you there alone at midnight and promised some important disclosures. You will have an opportunity to make them in the hut very soon, for I’m going to take you there now.”

“You may take me there if you wish, same as you can take a horse to water,” growled Mudd.

“By which I suppose you mean that I shall have the same trouble making you talk against your will that I would in making the horse drink unless he chose—is that it?”

“That is it exactly. Same time, young feller, I’m willing to talk if I’m paid.”

“I told you what I’d do,” said Dick. “You put a million dollars in my hands and I’ll give you a hundred thousand.”

“Will you give it to me in writing?” asked Mudd, quickly.

“Yes, I will.”

“Good enough! Come on to the hut. This is no joke, Dick Darrell. You have been wronged out of a large fortune and I know it. I could name the man who did it if I chose and I have a great mind to do it, too.”

As he spoke Martin Mudd shot a malignant look at Clara, which Dick did not at all understand just then.

“Name him,” he said. “Speak out. I mean business; show that you do, too.”

They were walking along through the canyon at the time and Mudd kept on for some moments in silence.

Suddenly he looked up, exclaiming:

“Well, I will name him. He is Colonel Tom Eglinton, the father of that girl!”

CHAPTER XVII.
CAUGHT NAPPING.

“It is false!” cried Clara. “How dare you accuse my father of crime?”

“It’s true,” persisted Mudd; “and now that the cat is out of the bag, I’m going to tell the whole story, so that Dick Darrell can see what sort of cattle he is dealing with when he comes to deal with old Tom Eglinton and his brood.”

“Hold your tongue or I’ll pull it out for you!” exclaimed Dick; “you have no right to insult this young lady so. Never mind him, Clara. We know what he is. Don’t pay the least attention to him. He is talking the same way he got shot—through his hat.”

“Oh, all right, then,” retorted Mudd. “I’ll hold my tongue. Stick to your friends, the Eglintons, young feller, only let me tell you one thing, it was old Tom Eglinton who hired me to kill you—that’s straight.”

It was a most awkward situation for Dick.

Poor Clara was terribly overcome by the charge brought against her father, and it took all Dick’s tact and shrewdness to put her at her ease again.

Charley took it all in and said but little, reserving his comments until they had reached the hut and disposed of their prisoner.

The sun was now sinking behind the hills and night coming on.

Dick scanned the opposite shore of the lake through his glass, but could see nothing of Doctor Dan.

Things at the hut were exactly as they had left them, and as there was no possibility of leaving it before morning, Dick proceeded to make his arrangements accordingly.

Mudd was put in the loft and his feet tied as well as his hands.

The wily schemer made a vigorous protest against it all, but Dick would not listen to him, and he closed the trapdoor, which communicated with the loft, and left him to himself.

As Clara was very much fatigued, Dick suggested that she take possession of one of the bunks in the lower room and lie down, which she did shortly after dark.

As for the boys themselves, they had no other idea than to stand guard until morning.

The night was just perfect; the air soft and balmy and every star seemed to be out for business.

Arm in arm, Dick and Charley walked up and down the shore in front of the hut discussing the singular adventures which had befallen them, but it remained for Charley to bring the conversation back to Martin Mudd.

“You don’t say much about that wild talk he made, Dick,” Charley began. “Don’t take any stock in it, I suppose?”

“Why, of course not,” laughed Dick. “It’s mere bluff.”

“I don’t feel so sure about that,” said Charley, musingly. “I believe that there is something under it all.”

“Guess not,” replied Dick, carelessly. “The mean wretch! He wanted to make poor Clara feel bad, that’s all. To-morrow, just as soon as it is light, we must all start down the mountain and get around to the other side of the lake. Doctor Dan shall decide whether we go back to Node Ranch with our prisoner or not, but I think it’s the best thing we can do.”

“Suppose we build a big fire and let the Doctor know we are here?” suggested Charley.

“Yes, and let that scoundrel Tony know, too, and perhaps half a dozen others. No, thank you. I don’t care about that. We’ll let well enough alone.”

For a few moments the boys continued to pace the shore in silence and then Charley broke out again.

“I can’t get away from it, Dick,” he said. “I think you ought to listen to what Mudd has to tell.”

“Oh, I’ll listen all right,” replied Dick. “Trouble is he won’t talk now.”

“No; you’ve got him mad. Say, Dick, you never told me much about your folks. I know your father and mother are both dead, but——”

“But you still persist in thinking that I may turn out to be a millionaire. No, Charley, I’m just nobody. My father was a mining engineer and poor as a church mouse. He used to operate out in this section, but he never made much more than a living. When I was about ten years old he was killed in a fight in Cheyenne and my mother died soon afterward. She always claimed that father owned mining lands out West, but she had no papers to prove it, so I guess there was nothing in it after all.”

“Now there you are!” cried Charley. “Who knows but what Mudd might have been acquainted with your father?”

“Might be so, of course, but, come. We have gone too far away from the hut. Let’s get back. We mustn’t do it again.”

“Let’s go ahead to the Boiling Pot; it’s only a few steps further. Hark! Don’t you hear? It has got down to business again.”

The surging of the waters over at the pot could be distinctly heard as the boys drew nearer and when they reached the point on the shore opposite to it the noise seemed louder than when they had heard it before.

Charley bent over the edge of the bank watching the movement of the water intently.

Just then the same familiar bellow was heard out on the lake and the Plesiosaurus rose to the surface at a considerable distance from shore.

“By gracious, old P. D. again!” shouted Charley.

Dick turned to look, when all at once there was a splash and Charley went headlong into the lake, pushed by a man who had stolen noiselessly up behind them, while Dick was seized by two others and swung violently around.

“Throw him after the other one!” cried one of the men. “Let ’em both go down into the pot!”

CHAPTER XVIII.
OLD P. D. LOOKS DOWN OVER THE ROCKS.

Charley was floundering around in the whirl of waters, struggling for dear life to prevent being dragged down into the boiling pot.

Dick was engaged in a struggle of another sort. He was making it decidedly hot for the men who had tackled him, kicking and turning and twisting. They tried hard to throw him over the edge of the bank and might have succeeded if another man had not come running out of the mouth of the canyon, shouting:

“No, no! Don’t pitch him in! Let the other go to thunder, but I want this one, as I told you before.”

It was Tony. As Dick recognized him he was suddenly stretched upon the ground by a stunning blow between the eyes that one of his captors found a chance to get in.

It nearly knocked the breath out of his body and his wits went with it for the moment.

When he came to himself again Tony had him by the collar and was lifting him up, while three tough-looking specimens stood around ready to help.

The Boiling Pot had stopped boiling now and Charley was nowhere to be seen.

“Say, Dick Darrell, brace up! Pull yourself together!” cried Tony. “Where’s Mudd and the gal?”

“Find out,” panted Dick. “I’m not telling. What have you done with my friend?”

“Oh, he’s gone back in the cave all right, I reckon,” chuckled Tony. “You’re a slick fighter, you are. See the black eye you have given my friend here? Never mind, though, you’ll be paid up for this.”

Dick was silent. There was no chance for any further struggles, for his hands had been tied behind him and he knew by the feeling that his revolver had been taken away.

“I guess Mudd is up to the hut all right, and the gal, too,” said Tony. “Hustle him along, boys. I’ll go ahead and make sure.”

Tony ran on and by the time Dick reached the hut Martin Mudd came out to meet him, with Tony by his side.

“Yes, that’s the right boy,” he said, glancing at Dick. “I knew you wouldn’t desert me, Tony. I shan’t forget this.”

“Well, you see I fell in with these here friends of mine,” said Tony. “Old cow punchers, every one on ’em. I was going down to Node Ranch for help, but thought I might as well come back and help you out when I met them.”

“Help me out still further by giving me a chance to talk to this boy,” said Mudd. “I’ve got something very important to say to him. With the girl stowed away in my place up in the loft the hut gives me just my chance.”

“And you want us to stay out—is that the idea?” asked Tony.

“Why, yes.”

“The boys won’t never consent to it while the whisky jug is inside, as they happen to know it is.”

“Go in and get the jug and help yourselves. Here’s the key to the locker,” replied Mudd, thrusting his hand into his pocket, adding:

“No, by Jove, it isn’t, either. I must have left it in the pocket of my other coat. Come on in and we’ll all have a drink.”

“But what about the boy?” asked Tony.

“Oh, tumble him over on the ground. He can’t get up with his hands tied.”

“Yes he can, too.”

“Then tie his feet into the bargain and make sure. We won’t be gone ten minutes anyhow.”

And this was just the way they served poor Dick.

Tied hand and foot, he lay there on the shore of the lake filled with anxiety for his friends and forced to listen to the drunken songs and wild shouts of Mudd and his crew inside the hut.

The proposed ten minutes had lengthened into an hour and still no one came out of the hut.

Mudd seemed to have forgotten all about his proposed talk with Dick, until at last the door of the hut flew open and he came staggering along with his rusty old plug tilted back on his head and his necktie twisted around under his chin.

“Hello, Dick—Dick Darrell,” he said, thickly. “Are you there?”

“Can’t you see me?” replied Dick. “You could if you weren’t drunk.”

“Don’t sass me, boy, for it won’t pay you,” replied Mudd, staggering up to Dick and sitting down upon the ground beside him.

His back was now against a pile of rocks, which at this point cropped out upon the shore.

“Let me free, Mudd,” said Dick. “Come, now, no use in us two quarreling. Let me free.”

“Not a bit of use in our quarreling,” hiccoughed Mudd, “but I won’t set you free yet. Say, Dick Darrell, here’s the—here’s the—hic—the whole business in a clam shell. Clara’s father robbed your father of the big Gold Queen mine up in the Black Hills and hired a man to do your father up and he did.”

“Do you know this,” cried Dick. “You are pretty drunk, Mudd; do you feel sure you are speaking the truth?”

“Sure!” cried Mudd. “Why, of course, I’m sure! Hain’t I the—well, never mind. I was paid $5,000 to do you up all right, though, and Tom Eglinton is the man who paid the plunks. Burn him! He’s no good. That Gold Queen mine belongs to you, young feller, and it’s worth more’n a million, by Jove! Sign that air paper ’bout the hundred thousand dollars and I’ll give you evidence against Tom Eglinton what will hold good in any court—oh, great snakes, what’s this?”

Dick was scarcely listening now—he was staring up at the rocks above Martin Mudd’s head.

Over the edge of the rocks a monstrous head had just been thrust—it was the head of a Plesiosaurus—it dropped down and knocked off the battered plug.

Mudd looked up and sprang to his feet with a frightened yell.

“Got ’em again!” he bellowed loud enough to rival old P. D.

CHAPTER XIX.
DICK IMPROVES HIS OPPORTUNITIES.

Shouting for help from the hut, Martin Mudd ran toward it and disappeared inside.

But Dick was in no situation to defend himself from the monster, unfortunately.

All he could do was to lie there and look, but, truth told, he was not much scared and rather anticipated what happened next.

There was something wrong in the make-up of old P. D.’s head this time.

In the first place the big, staring eyes were missing and in their stead were simply two empty sockets.

If this, indeed, was a living Plesiosaurus it was a blind one, and, moreover, the scaly skin had a dried up, leathery appearance and the head fell down over the rocks after Martin Mudd ran away and just hung there limply.

“A fake! A dead one!” flashed over Dick, and he added to himself: “This is some of Doctor Dan’s work.”

And so it was. As Martin Mudd fled from the monster Doctor Dan came crawling out from behind the rocks, carrying a long stick in his hand.

“Hush, boy! Don’t say a word!” he whispered. “I’ll have you free in just one minute. Ha! Ha! Ha! How he did run!”

The Indian was shaking all over with suppressed laughter, as he cut the cords which held Dick a prisoner.

“Good for you, doctor!” cried Dick, springing up. “What have you been doing; killing old P. D.?”

“Not at all. That one is dead and it is only a fragment,” replied the Indian. He seized the dangling head and pulled and two or three yards of neck came whipping over the rocks and that was all there was to old P. D.

It was all dried up and looked decidedly aged.

“I ran this stick in under the jaw and just shook the head at him,” chuckled Doctor Dan. “Didn’t it scare him, though? Ha! Ha! Ha! Where is Charley, Dick? What in the world have you been about to let those fellows capture you? Oh, don’t be afraid of them. They are all dead drunk and asleep in the hut there but that man and he is such a coward that—ha—here he comes now.”

Mudd stepped out of the hut at that moment.

His jaw dropped when he saw Dick free and Doctor Dan with him.

Evidently Martin Mudd believed in the old adage that “he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day,” for he ran off up the lake shore as fast as his condition would allow.

Doctor Dan gave chase and fired two or three shots after him, but he did not catch the man and actually did not try.

Mudd disappeared among the rocks which lined the shore, and the Indian soon returned and joined Dick in front of the hut.

Dick was listening at the door and he held up his finger as Doctor Dan approached.

“There’s one of them moving about inside there,” he whispered. “Keep still.”

“Let ’em move,” said Doctor Dan. “Who are they, anyway? I looked in through the window and saw a lot of fellows lying about drunk in there, but they are all strangers to me. Say, where’s Charley, Dick?”

“Dead, I’m afraid,” replied Dick, hoarsely. “Help me, doctor! That young lady I told you about is a prisoner in there. I’ll explain later, but we must settle with these fellows first.”

“I’ll soon settle ’em,” chuckled Doctor Dan. “I’ll send them after your friend Mudd.”

He ran back to the rocks and soon returned dragging the head of the Plesiosaurus after him, but it was not needed. All was quiet inside the hut now and when Dick ventured to open the door softly they were all sound asleep.

Tony lay in the bunk, but the others were stretched out upon the floor.

“Keep your eye on ’em, doctor,” whispered Dick, and he made for the loft ladder.

In a few moments Clara came down the ladder and Dick quickly followed her.

Doctor Dan took off his hat politely and Dick introduced Clara when they got outside.

“Most happy to make your acquaintance, miss,” said the guide. “I have met your father. Once I had trouble with him. He got angry with me when I was guiding a party of prospectors among the Black Hills and tried to kill me. He shot at me twice, but I escaped. I only mention this so you may know just who I am.”

Dick was greatly troubled. Clara turned red and pale again as she took Dick’s arm.

“Doctor Dan,” she said, very quietly, “I know my father is a hard man. I can only say that I am sorry that—that——”

“Say nothing,” broke in Doctor Dan. “I am an Indian, but I bear no malice toward you, miss. As for your father——”

“Don’t doctor! Please don’t for my sake!” pleaded Dick.

“Well, I’d do a good deal for your sake, young fellow,” said Doctor Dan. “I’m dumb. Come on. We want to get away from here.”

“Not without old P. D.’s head,” said Dick. “It is most valuable to me. I shall ship it to Washington at the earliest opportunity. I’ll carry it if it is too heavy for you.”

“Heavy! Nonsense! What am I here for?” replied Doctor Dan. He picked up the head, which, with the neck, must have weighed at least forty pounds, and walked off down the shore, leaving Dick and Clara to follow as they pleased.

“I’m afraid of that man,” said Clara. “Oh, Dick, it is terrible to hear my father spoken of so, and yet——”

Clara paused. Dick said nothing. He was beginning to think that Mr. Eglinton must be a pretty bad man.

“And yet,” continued Clara, after a moment, “I am afraid my father is not a very good man. Oh, Dick, I hate to say it, but after what you have done for me I ought to tell you—to warn you. Martin Mudd has had dealings with my father. On that very night when he tried to kill you in Washington he had just left our house and—and—Dick, do look out for yourself. Don’t go with me to the Gold Queen mine on any account.”

“I’m not afraid,” replied Dick, “but I am going to do just as you say, Clara.”

“If my father has robbed you of what rightfully belongs to you he shall make it good!” cried Clara, her eyes flashing. “Leave it to me, Dick. I am the only one in the world who has any influence with him.”

“If he had robbed me of a million and it was going to do you harm to try to get it back again I would not make a move,” whispered Dick.

Clara turned away, her face suffused with blushes.

Arm in arm they walked along the shore.

Had Dick fallen in love?

Certainly it began to look very much that way.

CHAPTER XX.
THE SLEEPING PLESIOSAURUS.

It was not until Dick and Clara had reached the Boiling Pot that the girl spoke again.

“Where is Charley?” she asked. “Why isn’t he here?”

Then Dick called a halt and told the whole story.

Doctor Dan had been waiting for them and he listened with close attention.

“It’s a bad business,” he said. “In all probability Charley has been sucked down into that underground river again, but as he went down once and escaped, he may have escaped a second time. Anyhow, let us hope so. Now, Dick, don’t you want to know how I came to be here, and where I got the head that scared your friend Mudd so?”

“Indeed I do,” replied Dick, “and I want you to understand that I don’t give up hope about Charley at all, but one thing is certain, we have got to go down into the cavern and see if we can find him.”

“Sure,” said Doctor Dan, “and we will find him. Now listen to me. There seem to be many ways into that cavern. I’ve been there. I found the Plesiosaurus’ head there. I came upon an opening in the rocks away over on the other side of the lake, near our camp, and, following it up, it took me into the cavern. I came out the same way you did. I crossed the underground river and, what is more, I struck your trail. I can take you back to camp the same way and we can hunt for Charley as we go.”

This seemed to be entirely the correct scheme and Dick and Doctor Dan lost no time in carrying it out.

The only objection Dick made was that they would have to work in the dark, but this Doctor Dan soon disposed of by producing a lantern, which he had brought along with him and hidden among the rocks in the canyon.

Then they hurried on to the stone steps and were soon down in the cavern once more.

Armed with the lantern, Doctor Dan went ahead and had no difficulty in following his own trail, for the floor of the cavern was composed of soft sand and the guide’s footsteps plainly showed.

Now we have said but little about Dick’s anxiety for Charley, because there has been so much to tell, but it was of the keenest kind.

As they walked along by the side of the underground river Dick kept shouting Charley’s name, as he had done before, hoping to get an answer, and before they had gone any great distance sure enough he did.

Of course this threw the whole party into a great state of excitement and they hurried forward and soon came upon Charley, who was running toward them along the river bank.

“It’s all right, Dick!” he shouted. “I came down as easy as you please. No trouble about the Boiling Pot once you know how to handle yourself in it. Hello, doctor. How in the world did you get over this side of the lake? Oh, Dick, I’ve got such news to tell!”

Charley was so excited that he could hardly wait until Dick had told what happened at the hut, although he insisted upon hearing it all before he would explain.

“We have got to look sharp or that scoundrel Mudd will finish us up sooner or later,” he exclaimed. “Now, then, Dick, what do you suppose I have found?”

“Give it up, but I wish you would tell,” replied Dick. “Out with it! We are all dying to hear.”

“Old P. D. asleep!”

“What!”

“Old P. D. asleep, I tell you. Oh, I mean it! This cave is a wonderful place. You haven’t seen half of it yet, nor I, either, for that matter. You see I landed on the other side of the river this time and I had to swim across, but before I did it I browsed around there a bit and made my discovery. I was working down to the steps when I met you. Keep the lantern down lower, doctor, so that I may follow my trail. There, that’s right. Dick, I believe we can catch old P. D. after all and hold him till we can get Prof. Poynter up here.”

“It would be a big triumph if we could,” said Dick. “But I am waiting to have you tell me more about it, Charley. How did you make all these discoveries in the dark?”

“Why, it wasn’t done in the dark,” replied Charley. “I found a lantern here. It went out a few moments ago for want of oil, so I left it behind me. Oh, I haven’t told you all I have discovered yet.”

“Let’s have the rest of it then,” said Doctor Dan. “Hello! Here’s your lantern now.”

There it stood on the sand, close to the river bank. Charley ran ahead and picked it up. “Here’s where I crossed. It’s only knee deep—all stones in the channel. We have got to get over, but what will Clara do?”

“In a case like this if it is only knee deep I guess I can manage it,” said Clara. “I’m not afraid of getting my feet wet, Charley, when you are wet to the skin from head to foot.”

“Wait,” said Doctor Dan; “let me go over first and see.”

He pulled off his shoes and stockings, rolled up his trousers and waded across, but Charley plunged right in and crossed, for he could not have been wetter than he already was.

“I can carry you across, miss, if you will let me,” called Doctor Dan, as he started back. “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you even if I am an Indian and your father is my enemy.”

“Go, Clara. It will please him,” whispered Dick.

“Certainly I will let you,” replied Clara, and Doctor Dan stooped down, gathered the girl’s skirts together about her ankles, then lifted her up and carried her across the stream as easily as though she had been a baby.

Dick hastily followed and they had no sooner joined Charley on the other side than he picked up the lantern and hurried forward away from the river so fast that they could hardly keep up with him.

“We are right there now!” he called out. “Come on! Come on!”

To their surprise a few moments later they emerged from the cavern and found themselves standing under the stars.

“Hello!” cried Doctor Dan; “this beats me. I had no idea of anything like this.”

It was a most peculiar spot. Before them lay a broad pool of water, perhaps a hundred yards across, beyond which was a low ridge of rocks, and over this they could look off upon the Bad Lands for miles and miles.

“There you are!” cried Charley, pointing down into the pool. “He lies just as I left him—old P. D. asleep!”

Sure enough, at the bottom of the pool, with its head tucked in under its huge body, lay a specimen of the strange prehistoric monster which Dick and Charley had come up into the Bad Lands to find.

CHAPTER XXI.
LASSOING OLD P. D.

“Is it asleep or is it dead?” asked Clara, after they had watched the Plesiosaurus for several moments in silence.

“Asleep,” said Charley, decidedly. “It moved twice while I was watching it. Now, Dick, this is only part of my discovery. I——”

“Yes, and I can tell you the rest,” said Dick, pointing over toward the rocky ridge beyond the pool. “We are not the first ones who have been here.”

“Indeed we are not,” replied Charley. “You see?”

There was a rude hut near the ridge and lying on the ground outside were two huge coils of rope, one almost as big round as a steamer’s hawser.

Charley led the way around the pool and when they got to the hut Dick saw that a stout post ten feet high had been driven into the ground with big notches cut into it. In the hut were axes, crowbars and other tools; also a great roll of canvas and various other things. Charley explained that he found the lantern here.

“Looks to me as though some one had brought all these things here for the express purpose of capturing old P. D.,” said Dick, “but they have been here a long while, Charley.”

“For several years,” said Doctor Dan. “Strange that I never heard of this and I thought I knew the Bad Lands pretty well, too.”

“Some one has tried it,” said Charley; “probably the pool is a regular hangout for this particular Plesiosaurus. There must be some connection with the underground river and the lake. I believe the scheme was to make a slip noose, drop it around old P. D.’s neck and tie him up to the post here until such time as some means could be found of getting him out.”

“It would never work,” said Doctor Dan.

“I’m not so sure,” said Dick. “We might succeed in tying him, anyway, and keeping him here in the pool till we could get help.”

“Let’s try it, Dick,” said Charley, eagerly. “I go in for it.”

“I think it might be done,” said Clara. “What a strange looking creature it is to be sure! Anyone could make their fortune by exhibiting it in the States.”

“It will never be exhibited if we succeed in snaring it,” said Dick. “It belongs to the Smithsonian the moment it comes into our hands.”

“What do you say, doctor?” he added. “Shall we try it on?”

“I’m at your service, boys,” replied the Indian. “I can throw a lasso as well as any man alive and I think I ought to be able to drop a noose around that fellow’s neck, but, before we begin I think we had better see how we are going to get out of here. I want to take a look over these rocks.”

“There’s a trail down the mountain—pretty steep, but still a trail,” declared Charley.

One glance showed them that he was right. The trail was indeed steep and it had a strangely smooth and worn appearance, especially at a point where there was a break in the rocks and where it seemed to begin.

“Oh, he’s lifting up his head!” cried Clara. “He’s waking up!”

The Plesiosaurus perhaps had been disturbed by the loud talking. Slowly the great head came up through the water, rose above the surface and surveyed the party with its huge eyes in a fashion which seemed to show a decided bump of curiosity.

Suddenly its mouth opened and the monster let out one mighty bellow which made the rocks around fairly ring.

Clara screamed in terror, but old P. D. drew his head down in a dignified way and tucked it under his body again.

“I could have lassoed him then!” cried Doctor Dan. “Pity we didn’t have the rope ready.”

“We’ll get it ready right away,” said Dick, “for he may take a notion to have another look at us any moment. I wonder if this post will hold.”

“It’s pretty firm,” said Doctor Dan, trying it. “I feel more worried about the rope. Lay hold here, boys, we will unwind it and tie one end to the post. Leave the knots to me. I’ll fix them so that two P. D.’s could not unloose them, but I don’t want to guarantee that the rope won’t break.”

It took half an hour of good hard work to get everything in readiness and during all that time old P. D. had never moved.

As there would be no chance to lasso him until he did, Dick and Charley undertook to stir the monster up by throwing big stones into the pool.

Meanwhile Clara had taken her place at the top of the ridge behind the hut, rather a dangerous spot, too, for behind her there was a sheer descent down over the cliffs of several hundred feet to a narrow ledge below.

“Give him another, Dick,” cried Charley. “I’m sure my last one hit him, but he never budged.”

Dick let another stone fly and with such good effect that it struck the Plesiosaurus square on the back.

Immediately the monster threw up its head and the water began to boil.

Up came the long neck and the head was thrust angrily out of the pool.

Doctor Dan, with a peculiar cry, flung his huge lasso and it dropped down over the monster’s head.

“Pull! Pull!” shouted the Indian. “We have got him if we can only hold him!”

Dick and Charley were at the other end of the rope and they pulled with all their strength, old P. D. giving out his frightful cry as the rope tightened about his neck.

Suddenly his whole huge body rose to the surface and he darted forward toward the shore.

The rope flew taut and snapped short off close to the post with a suddenness and a force which threw down Dick, Charley and Doctor Dan.

Clara screamed and once more the Plesiosaurus gave its dreadful bellow.

Its huge webbed feet were on the shore now and it darted its head, with open jaws, straight down toward Doctor Dan, who was trying to regain his feet.

CHAPTER XXII.
MUDD ON TOP AGAIN.

Dick and Charley fully realized Dr. Dan’s danger, but what could they do?

The dangerous attempt to snare the Plesiosaurus had not only been a complete failure, but a fearful mistake, for a few seconds later it looked as if Dr. Dan was doomed.

The Plesiosaurus caught him just as it had caught Dick.

It did not bite the Indian, nor even seize him in its terrible jaws, as one might have expected, but with lightning quickness it ran its head under Dr. Dan, and the next Dick and Charley knew it had him twisted in a fold of its long neck, and went waddling off toward the steep, slippery trail down the mountain.

“Fire at him, boys! Fire! Save me if you can!” shouted the unfortunate guide.

Until then the boys had just stood there dumb with the horror of the situation.

How could they fire?

Dick’s revolver had been taken from him by Martin Mudd. Charley had lost his coming down through the Boiling Pot. Dr. Dan himself was the only man who was armed.

“Work yourself out! I did!” yelled Dick. “Can’t fire! Got no revolver! I won’t desert you, though! I’ll follow on!”

The Plesiosaurus had now disappeared down the trail.

It went sliding down over the slippery rocks, and now the boys were able to understand what made it so smooth. Probably this had been the monster’s path for years.

“Oh, it’s terrible! Terrible!” cried Clara. “Oh, Dick! Can nothing be done to save that man?”

“There’s his rifle now, standing against the hut!” cried Charley. “Why didn’t we think of it before?”

Dick made a rush for the rifle, and sprang to the head of the trail.

“It will do no good, anyhow, but here goes!” he cried.

He fired, but with no result, just as he had anticipated.

The bullet struck the monster on its scaly back and glanced off as if it had been fired against boiler plate.

Down the steep slope the Plesiosaurus went sliding.

Dr. Dan’s cries grew fainter. All gave the faithful guide up for lost.

“It’s no use!” groaned Dick. “I must go after him, though. I said I would, and so I will!”

“Oh, Dick, don’t go! Don’t go!” pleaded Clara.

“For gracious sake don’t try it!” shouted Charley. “It’s all your life is worth, Dick!”

But Dick had already started, and there was no such thing as holding him back.

And yet if he had only known it, there was a safe and easy way down over those cliffs not ten yards distant from the hut.

But the way Dick had taken was not only very difficult, but highly dangerous. It was frightfully steep, too, with scarce a foothold, and as smooth as glass.

Down this terrible incline the Plesiosaurus slid easily enough, and no doubt it had come up the same way many times, its queer webbed feet acting as suckers like the feet of a fly.

But Dick possessed no such power.

He could only crouch down “on his hunkies,” as the boys say, and go sliding along after old P. D.

What if he should overtake the monster and run into him? he could not help thinking; but there was no such danger, for old P. D. went faster than he could go by far, and yet to Dick it seemed as though he was sliding down with lightning speed.

When he reached the level ridge below he struck it with such force that he went over on his face, hitting his head and knocking the wits out of him for the moment.

The next he knew he was scrambling up trying to save himself from slipping over the edge of another precipice, the ground slipping away under his feet.

Dick drew back in horror just in time to save himself.

Springing aside on the firmer ground, he found himself looking down into a deep, narrow valley inclosed on all sides.

There was a lake at the bottom of this valley, and Dick saw old P. D. in the act of slipping into it.

The monster threw up its head as the big body sank beneath the water, and gave one parting bellow, and after that Dick saw him no more, nor did he think of him, for there lying upon the ground at no great distance away was Dr. Dan.

Dick ran to the guide and tried to raise him up.

The unfortunate man seemed to be entirely unconscious, and yet there was no sign of any wound upon him.

Dick began to think that it was pretty well demonstrated that the Plesiosaurus did not feed on human flesh. The monster had just squeezed the life out of poor Dr. Dan and dropped him before it started on its second descent, that was all.

Dick threw down the rifle and raised the Indian’s head, calling his name again and again; but Dr. Dan showed no sign of life.

“Oh, he’s dead! He’s dead!” cried Dick. “What shall I do?”

“Do drop him!” said a sneering voice behind him. “His name is Mud, and so is mine, and so is yours, too, Dick Darrell, unless you and I can come to terms.”

There he was!

The same old Martin Mudd, and there stood Tony beside him grinning.

Both held revolvers, and both covered Dick as the boy slowly rose to his feet to face his enemies once more.

CHAPTER XXIII.
IS THIS STRANGE STORY TRUE?

It was decidedly despairing.

Moreover, Dick was intensely puzzled to understand how Mudd and Tony came to be there.

The fact was Dick still had a lot to learn about the twists and turns of this mysterious mountain.

As a matter of fact he was now on the trail leading over into the Black Hills, and not far from the spot where the attack had been made on Clara, and, if he had but known it, he was also at no great distance from the hut at the head of Izard Lake. There was a path known to Mudd and his friends leading down from the hut to the trail of which Dick had no knowledge at all.

Both men had sobered up a bit now, and were fully able to take care of themselves and of Dick, too, as they soon demonstrated, for they pounced upon the boy, and, each catching him by an arm, hurried him along the trail.

“Well met, my noble young scientist!” said Mudd, sneeringly. “We had given up all hope of finding you. Where are your friends, Master Charles Nicholson and Miss Clara Eglinton, just at the present time?”

“Find out,” retorted Dick. “I shall tell you nothing, Mr. Mudd; so you may as well hold your tongue.”

“Civil, upon my word,” sneered Mudd. “Did you ever hear such gentlemanly language, Tony? Ha! Ha! It takes these young Washington sprigs to come out here in the wild and woolly West and show us how to do it. I take it from the way you put it that they did not make a meal for that long-necked what-you-may-call-him, as I at first supposed.”

“Mr. Mudd,” said Dick, with all the calmness he could assume, “I want nothing to do with you. You have captured me again, and I can’t help it, but if you expect to make anything out of me, let me tell you right now, you are going to get left.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Mudd. “My lord puts it plain. But then, you see, my lord does not understand the situation. Now, then, here we are. Tony, you go ahead and see if the boss is coming. Blow the whistle as soon as you catch sight of him to give me warning. I want to have my trump card all ready to play, and that same trump card is this boy.”

“Don’t forget to play a trump card for me, boss,” growled Tony. “I don’t want to kick none, and I hain’t a-kicking, but it does seem to me of late that in all this business you are only figuring on lining your own pockets and leaving me out in the cold.”

“Rats! Rubbish! Get along with you!” roared Mudd, with a fierce display of drunken anger.

Tony hurried on up the trail and never said a word, while Mudd motioned Dick into a small cave which opened in under the cliff.

Not for one instant had he failed to keep Dick covered, and to have attempted to escape from him would have surely meant death.

“Now, sit down there, boy, and listen to me,” said Mudd, pointing to a big flat stone; “and before I begin to talk I’ll tell you one thing. I am going to shoot you dead at the first move you make toward escaping; do you understand?”

“I do,” replied Dick. “I’m badly shaken up, Mr. Mudd. I am going to sit still here for a while. You might just as well put your revolver up. I shan’t attempt to escape.”

“Come, now, that’s sensible.”

“I try to be sensible at all times.”

“So do I, boy. I am going to be sensible now. I’m going to try to come to terms with you once for all. If I fail now, I shall never try again, and you will probably be shot by the order of Colonel Tom Eglinton, whom I expect here in twenty minutes’ time.”

Dick was silent. He did not know whether to believe this or not. He did not know what to say, so he said nothing at all.

“I see you don’t believe me,” continued Mudd; “but it is true, just the same. I have sent for Eglinton, and he is coming down here to ransom his daughter. Perhaps you wonder how I dare to meet him alone, and if you do, look behind you. Ha! Ha! We were all drunk a while ago, but we are all sober enough to attend to business now. You ought to have finished up your work at the hut, young fellow. You and your friend, Doctor Dan.”

There they sat in the back of the cave, the same old gang.

Each man had his rifle lying across his knees; they were silent and motionless, but Dick saw that they were ready for business just the same.

“Now, what do you think of that?” demanded Mudd. “Am I up and dressed or am I asleep? Answer me that, boy.”

“Oh, what’s the use bothering to answer you?” retorted Dick. “You have got the big end of the stick, that’s all there is about it—go ahead.”

“Very well, then,” said Mudd, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Dick Darrell, listen to me. You are the true owner of the Gold Queen mine. The claim was located by your father. It adjoins one which was worked out belonging to Colonel Tom Eglinton, and he made up his mind to join the two properties together, and when old Tom Eglinton once sets his heart on accomplishing a certain object I want you to understand, something has got to give.”

“All this is old business,” said Dick, as Mudd paused for breath. “Tell me something new.”

“That’s what I will. Tom Eglinton tried to buy your father out, but he wouldn’t sell. Then he hired a man to pick a quarrel with him and shoot him, which was done. Oh, you needn’t glare at me, Dick Darrell. It’s true. I’ve got the papers about me to prove it. I have papers which prove the mine his. I’ve got Colonel Tom’s letters to me offering me money to kill you. There! What do you think of that?”

“Want to know?” demanded Dick.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, I think you are the man who killed my father and——”

“Oh, Dick! Dick!”

It was Clara!

Calling out Dick’s name she rushed into the cave, and, without the slightest ceremony, threw her arms about his neck, calling out:

“Oh, Dick, I am so glad you are alive!”

“Cool, upon my word!” cried Mudd. “By thunder, here comes the other one, too! What manners these city folks have!”

In rushed Charley, but he halted at the sight of Mudd and the men at the back of the cave.

“Stand there!” cried Mudd, throwing up his revolver. “You are all my prisoners, every one of you! Stand there where you are, or——”

A sharp whistle sounded further up the trail.

Was Clara’s father coming?

Dick thought so as he gently disengaged the girl’s arms from about his neck.

It was rather an awkward time to be introduced to Colonel Tom Eglinton, the millionaire mine owner of the Black Hills.

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 to find 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 get Dick and Dr. Dan.

[THE END.]

Transcriber’s Notes:

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The following changes were made:

p. 25: said added (here,” said Dick,)

p. 35: Charley changed to Dick (replied Dick. “Trouble)

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Table of Contents

- Transcriber’s Notes:

- Dick and Dr. Dan;

- CHAPTER I. A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR.

- CHAPTER II. ANOTHER MYSTERY OF A DIFFERENT SORT.

- CHAPTER III. ABOUT THE STRANGE HEAD THAT CAME OVER THE ROCKS.

- CHAPTER IV. CHARLEY IN CLOSE QUARTERS.

- CHAPTER V. THE DREAM THAT CAME TRUE.

- CHAPTER VI. MARTIN MUDD HEARS SOMETHING DROP.

- CHAPTER VII. CAPTURED BY MUDD.

- CHAPTER VIII. A NEW ARRIVAL FROM THE LAKE.

- CHAPTER IX. WHAT MONSTER IS COMING NOW?

- CHAPTER X. EXPLORING AROUND THE LAKE.

- CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER ON THE TABLE.

- CHAPTER XII. INTO THE BOILING POT.

- CHAPTER XIII. THE WONDERFUL CAVERN.

- CHAPTER XIV. LOST UNDERGROUND.

- CHAPTER XV. MR. MUDD TURNS UP AGAIN.

- CHAPTER XVI. MARTIN MUDD MAKES A SERIOUS CHARGE.

- CHAPTER XVII. CAUGHT NAPPING.

- CHAPTER XVIII. OLD P. D. LOOKS DOWN OVER THE ROCKS.

- CHAPTER XIX. DICK IMPROVES HIS OPPORTUNITIES.

- CHAPTER XX. THE SLEEPING PLESIOSAURUS.

- CHAPTER XXI. LASSOING OLD P. D.

- CHAPTER XXII. MUDD ON TOP AGAIN.

- CHAPTER XXIII. IS THIS STRANGE STORY TRUE?

- CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION.

- Transcriber’s Notes:

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE