Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 277 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XI

One howl from the human wolf-pack was enough to assemble the remnants of Harry's scattered wits.

He'd been trying to remember how he arrived here and his impressions on the subject were rather vague.

But there wasn't any doubt that he was where he didn't belong; the vengeful howls of the Valley tribe straightened him on that. What Harry needed was time to get going somewhere else and there was a factor in his favor.

To reach him, most of the Valley men had to go around the ruined cellar, which was a complex pitfall.

Once part of a very sizeable mansion, the cellar spread to such extremes that wide detours were advisable. So the pursuit began with a spread-eagle formation that offered Harry his necessary start - or would have if he hadn't stumbled.

It wasn't the stumble as much as Harry's hat.

Harry didn't even think of the hat until he kicked from the low stone on which it lay beside him. The hat hit the slope and rolled conspicuously down the slope. Seeing it, Harry decided he really needed it and acted accordingly. His brief chase cost him at least a dozen seconds; worse than that, it put him in the

open and close enough to attract the aim of guns. Despite herself, Shirley shrieked a warning as she saw the men who circled the pit take pause and raise their guns.

What might have happened didn't.

Something sliced across the sward like a figment from the dark side of the moon. It was human, yet fantastic, this cloaked shape that hurtled from beside a knoll, to reach the spot where Harry stooped. It seemed to stretch itself along the ground in a gigantic slide that carried Harry with it, just before the gunnery ripped.

The Shadow!

Shirley didn't know him by that name, but he reminded her of a shadow, one of a sinister sort. In this bailiwick, the mere word "shadow" stood for the perpetual menace that dwelt in the umbra of Ragged Rock. Venner's share-croppers held the same opinion but they feared the jinx only in the daytime.

If the thing that had rescued Harry Vincent happened to be Black Arthur's ghost, it could look out for itself.

It did.

Out from the blackness near the stone wall came a taunting laugh that ridiculed the gunfire from below.

The local marksmen had missed their target and were getting mockery in return. But it wasn't the custom for Black Arthur's ghost to laugh, hence The Shadow's favorite mode of discouraging opposition actually stimulated it on this occasion.

The Valley folk charged upward, guns coming to aim. Beside the wall, The Shadow gave Harry a shove that sent him in the opposite direction. Starting a stumbly dash, Harry heard his chief's admonition:

"Keep low, so they won't see you. Around the end of the wall and then over toward the gully -"

His hand plucking something that lay beside him, The Shadow wheeled erect. His other hand went back against the wall as his first arm delivered an underhand sling. One of the aiming gunners howled as he flew off balance, his shot-gun spurting upward instead of dead ahead.

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