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■pJSH iWg*| SYNOPSIS. On Windward Island Palidorl Intrigues Mrs Golden into an appearanre of evil which causes Golden to capture anil tor ture the Italian by branding his face and crushing his hand. Palidorl floods the is land and kidnaps Golden’s little daughter Margery. Twelve years later in New York a Masked One rescues Margery from Le gar and takes her to her father's home, whence she is recaptured. Margery’s mother fruitlessly Implores Golden to find their daughter. The Laughing Mask again takes Margery away from sends to Golden a warning and a. demand for a portion of the chart of Windward Island. Margery meets her mother. The chart is lost in a fight be tween Manley and one of Legar’s hench men, but is recovered by the Laughing Mask Count Da Espares figures in a dubious attempt to entrap Legar and claims to have killed him. Golden’s house is dynamited during a masked ball. Le gar escapes hut Da Espares is crushed in the ruins. Margery rescues the Laughing Mask from the police. Manley finds Mar gery not indifferent to his love He saves her from Manke’s poisoned arrows. TENTH EPISODE THE LIVING DEAD "I’m opposed to your plan, sir,” ! Enoch Golden declared with heat, "and I always will he opposed to it!” David Manley, as he stared across the table at the ruffled old millionaire, tried to control himself to patience. "But you acknowledge that you are equally opposed to Legar’s intrusions Into this house, to having his secret agents planted about at your elbows. But when I work out a plan that offers a reasonable promise of trapping Le gal - and his men, vou stop the whole business by declaring it’s lacking in dignity!” “Dignity is something which depart ed from this house the day Legar first forced his way into it!” was Golden’s bitter retort. "Precisely!” cried young Manley. "His whole campaign has been one of Intimidation, of threats and assaults and reprisals. They have been try ing to fight us with terror. So my contention is, why not give them a dose of their medicine? Why not fight them with their own weapons, and in doing so, perhaps go them one better?” "But I can only repeat my convic tions that your plan can’t succeed!” protested the tremulous-voiced old financier. "Why not leave that to me?” cut in young Manley, with his first touch of impatience. "I’ve left a good many things to you, Davy; but I don’t encourage men to plan their own funerals!” "Yet I’ve thought this out, sir, and I maintain that It's worth a try. You know as well as I do that these men who work with Legar are an ignorant and illiterate lot. They’re not afraid of force. But when you confront them with the supernatural, you get them face to face with something they can’t understand. And what they can’t un derstand they are going to be afraid of!” "And you think you're going to frighten 'eta away with a casket!” “I’m going to make them believe that David Manley, having departed this life because of an attack on. his per son by one Mauki, with poisoned ar row's, is about to be duly interred in the Golden mausoleum, and —” “But you couldn’t even get a wax figure that would fool a five-year-old child! You couldn’t —” "I’ve already got the figure, inter rupted Manley. “And it strikes me as being an exceptionally perfect one.” “But what’s all this funeral business to lead to?” demanded the old finan cier. “It leads to the fact that Legar and his men will be duly informed of my death, for I want all the servants in this house to pass before the casket and see me in it. And Legar’s spy will be one of them. So Legar, you may be sure, will get the facts as soon as they are known. He will be tipped ofT aa to the day and hour of the funeral. He will also be told that the cortege, say of three carriages, is to proceed to the Golden mausoleum, and that Margery Golden is to go in one of the carriages. And that lonely spot will strike him as precisely the right spot for making a coup.” “And what do we gain by that?” “We’ll fill our big thirty-thousand dollar mausoleum with thirty big police men, and round up the gang before Legar can even smell a rat.” But Enoch Golden remained uncon vinced. “Well, it may be a brilliant plan, but you '.an please leave me out of it,” he finally announced. “That’s just what I’ve been asking for,” explained Manley. "All I want is to be allowed to conduct it in my own way.” David Manley, how’ever, did not con duct that strange funeral altogether in his own way. Carefully as every detail had been planned, there were one or two minor features which at the time escaped his attention. The most inconspicuous and yet the most vital of these was, perhaps, the personality of the driver of the third carriage in that small cortege which wended its way so decorously from the Golden home. For under the funereal outfit of this placid-eyed driver re- posed the stalwart body of a certain One-Lamp Louie, long known among his associates as an habitue of the Owl’s Nest and an underground agent for Jules Legar himself. Now One-Lamp Louis gave no prom ise of either active or passive inter ference with these duly appointed mor tuary exercises until the city itself had been left well behind. Then, awakening to the fact tnat they were ! traversing a desirably sequestered j stretch of road, he watched intently j lor certain prearranged signals from his one-armed accomplice. Immediate ly after the discovery of those looked for signs the spirited team driven by One-Lamp Louie showed unexpected yet unmistakable evidences of restive ness. But there was a limit to what that team of spirited blacks would endure. And they suddenly, to ail intents and purposes, determined to follow their own line of travel at their own rate of speed, for. as the driver sat on the j box apparently sawing on the reins, that exasperated team plunged sud denly forward, swerved across the : road, and went galloping down a tree screened bypath which was little more than a cart trail winding in and out through slopes of greensward and shrubbery. Half a mile deeper in that shrub bery this runaway team would surely have reached the spot where a black limousine stood hidden away in the shadow of laurel-copse, had not still another and an equally unheralded fac tor entered into the situation. This factor took the form of a high-power roadster in which was seated a man wearing a yellow mask. His irrup tion into that orderly little procession, indeed, proved as abrupt as One-Lamp Louie’s eruption from it. And he seemed plainly suspicious of both Louie’s motives and movements, for he lost no time in swinging from the highway and plunging recklessly after the runaway carriage. As his car approached the runaw r ay cab that mysterious stranger, known as the Laughing Mask, stepped to the running-board of his roadster, leaning far out as the two swerving vehicles drew together. One-Lamp Louie, what ever he may have thought of that ap proach, had little means of evading it. To swing off what narrow road re mained before him seemed frankly suicidal. To lash his team to greater effort was already out of the question. To take his hands from the reins, even, along that uncertain road, was equally foolhardy. So the strange race went on, the swaying and bounding cab with a white-faced girl tossed about under its hood, the leaping and lurching roadster, every second draw ing closer down on its quarry yet every second threatening to turn tur tle over one of the grassy embank ments above which it shuddered and slewed. It was the Laughing Mask, leaning far out from his running-board, who threw open the cab-door and called sharply to the startled girl. “Quick,” he commanded. For one moment she hesitated. Then she reached out for the unsteady hand groping for her. The next moment she found herself sitting back, a little breathless, in the leather-upholstered seat of the road ster and tho man in the Laughing Mask smiling down at her. ******* The Black Watch. A number of things had happened and were happening to disconcert, if not to discourage, the redoubtable Le gar. That astute young adventuress, Betsy Le Marsh, alias Williamsburg Elsie, who. with the aid of divers forged recommendations, had installed herself in the Golden household, re peatedly and stubbornly reported that David Manley was dead. Williamsburg Elsie also expressed a strong desire to migrate from the house in which she found herself so inquisitive a maid, since that house, she declared, was too full of “queer things” for her comfort. When, at Legar’s suggestion, she had tried to "pump a needleful o’ dope” into her altogether unsuspecting mistress, a dead man's face had sud denly appeared between her and the bedroom door. And on two different occasions, after midnight, when she had ventured down to the housekeep er’s telephone to send in a secret mes sage to Legar himself, she had found herself confronted by a ghost In white. Nor was Betsy Le Marsh the only malcontent. Even Red Egan himself, one of the best “cold-steel” men in all the group that clustered about the Owl’s Nest, had of late shown unmis takable signs of mental disturbance. A dead man's ghost, he declared, had looked in through one of the head quarters’ windows. Red Egan, it is true, had promptly emptied his six shooter at that phantasmal intruder, but with nothing more to show for it than a shattered window-sash and six panes of broken glass. When the master-criminal, to put an end to all such absurdities, had by tho force of many dire threats and oaths compelled both One-Lamp Louie and Red Egan himself to repair to the Golden mausoleum and verify the con tents of the mysterious casket there deposited. Red Egan had returned with the preposterous story of a white sheet suddenly descending out of the black ness of the vault and whisking One- Lamp Louie out of reach and also out of fight. And since the once valiant Red Egan showed so craven a spirit that nothing short of a quart of three star brandy could tranquilize his shak ! en nerves and since One-Lamp Louie showed no signs of returning from the mysterious realms into which the afore-mentioned white sheet had whisked him, Legar promptly and i wrathfully decided to take the matter ! his own hands. He would lay this ghost, he announced, or something would go smash in the process. ! But he had no intention of approach j ing that intimidating mausoleum with ! out due and definite preparation. With him he took a powerful pocket flash light, a Colt automatic pistol and a couple of extra clips of cartridges, nut the instrument on which he re posed the most confidence was a gun metal disk little bigger than a pocket aneroid, some three inches in diame ter and no thicker than a man’s hand. This innocent-looking disk, which could be slipped into a vest pocket as easily as a timepiece, was known to the habitues of the Owl's Nest as the Black Watch. While actually nothing more than a small-sized hand grenade, its claim to distinction lay in the tremendous explosive power which stood com pressed between its slender metal walls. Legar was not a coward. Yet as he stood in the clammy midnight air of the Golden mausoleum and quietly removed the screws that held the top on the black casket beside him, he found that combination of silence and gloom and unsavory surroundings a little more of a strain on his nerves than he had anticipated. Yet as he lifted back the sable cover of the casket he did so with a hand that was still steady. Author of "THE OCCA SIONAL OF FENDER.’"THE WIRE TAP PERS," "GUN RUNNERS.’etc Novelized from THE PATHE PHOTO PLAY OP THE SAME NAME r \ •» rrwMt** THE DOUGLAS ENTERPRISE, DOUGLAS, GEORGIA. When She Tried to "Pump a Needleful o' Dope” Into Her Mistress, a Dead Man's Face Appeared. Thence he to’bk up his flashlight, and pressing close to the coffin’s side, stood studying the pallid face that lay surrounded by its even more pallid drapery of white satin. He stared at that pallid face long and intently. He stared at it with stu dious and narrowing eyes. Then he did a strange and an inexplicable thing. Lifting his maimed right arm that ended in its shank of steel, he brought it down with a crash on the glass cover of the casket. Then, as though infuriated by some unreasoning hatred for the pallid face still staring so im passively up at him, he struck again. This time the blow fell directly on the head between the white satin swath iags. But that flailing arm, instead of striking ? human head of flesh and bone, crashed down through a thin shell of fiber and tinted wax. Legar, focusing his light on that shattered mask, emitted a short bark of triumph as the meaning of it all came home to him. He leaned for several minutes over the violated cas ket, staring at it with insolent yet ab stracted eyes, pondering just what move could lie beyond so intricately en gineered a subterfuge. And the an swer to that question came more promptly and more directly than he had anticipated. For as he stood there, turning a piece of the wax-cov ered tissue meditatively over in his fingers, the electric bulbs that strung the mausoleum roof broke into sudden light. From different quarters of that shadowy building, at the same time, stepped a group of hidden officers, headed by David Manley himself. So quickly and so quietly did that transformation take piace, indeed, that the man leaning over the casket had neither time nor chance to change his position. He merely blinked a lit tle stupidly at the revolver which glimmered in Manley's hand. Then, with a gesture that seemed equally stupid, he reached for his watch and held the heavy gun-metal case medi tatively between his fingers. “Stick ’em up!” Manley was at the same time commanding with a curt head movement towards Legar’s hands. “It may have taken some work, but this is the time we gather you in!” Legar laughed as he confronted his enemies. “Do you want to take me alive?’ "Alive or dead, I’m going to take you!” "Then take this first,” cried Legar. At the same moment that he spoke the left hand in which he still held what seemed to be a black metal watch case swung forward. And as that object which so closely resembled a black watch hurtled through the air, Legar flung himself flat on his face along the vault flooring. Then the black watch struck. The next moment the walls of that ponderous structure of marble and sandstone seemingly built to defy time itself, lifted bodily in the air, like the hull of a torpedoed dreadnaught. Then, following the roar and rumble of that vast detonation, came the mo mentary catastrophic silence which so strangely and yet so inevitably suc ceeds a calamity too gigantic and too abrupt to be understood. That ominous silence, however, last ed only for a few seconds. Out of it arose muffled calls and thin cries for help, followed by answering shouts from many different points in the darkness as rescuing hands set to work on the ruins. And out of those ruins, while this work was going on, emerged two bruised and tattered figures strangely divergent in appearances. The first figure, worming its way out through the interstices of crumbled rock and cement, as cautiously and as silently as a wounded blacksnake might crawl from a cave, bore an iron claw at the end of its right arm and betrayed an unmistakable desire to creep away in to the darkness before being observed. The second man, who, on recovering consciousness found himself encaged between two fallen pillars of marble topped by one of the roof slabs, experi enced no little difficulty in emerging to the open, so closely were these pro tecting pillars wedged about him. But as he worked his bruised body through that Giant’s Causeway of bro ken rock, he felt grateful enough, re membering what had happened, to be still alive. And sore as he was in body, he was even more bruised in spirit at the memory of the fact that his enemy, Jules Legar, had at the last moment escaped from his clutch. ******* The Lake of Fire. Legar, lucky as his escape had been, knew that his margin of safety was still too narrow for much immediate comfort of either mind or body. So he crawled away as best he could, nursing his strength when he came to cover and going on again when some passing light showed that cover to be none too dense. But he did not give up until he had reached higher ground. There he was able to hide himself in a thicket and rest for an hour or two. But to remain in that neighborhood until morning, he knew, would be out of the question. About that whole suspected area, he felt, the police would surely throw a cordon, and the resource of disguise was no longer at his disposal. Already from where he lay, he could see dozens of moving lamps of workers about the mauso leum ruins. He could also see the glow of a powerful pair of headlights, apparently on a moto" car threading its way to the scene cf the explosion. And to the north he could even more distinctly see the fiery tongues of the chimney flares above the Westingham foundry, where hundreds of toilers, turning night into day, worked about the great blast furnaces and cauldrons of molten metal. In a foundry such as that, he sud denly remembered, lay his best chance for escape. Disheveled as he was, he could pass unnoticed among those sooty workers. And when the night shift went off, he told himself, he could slip away in their midst, un noticed and unchallenged. And if the worst came to the worst he could crawl into hiding somewhere about the tangle of machinery under that foundry roof itself, and there lay up until he knew the coast was clear again, with the chance of stealing a puddler's “jumper” for a disguise and a dinner pail or two full of food for a meal. All this Legar might have done, and might have done without great diffi culty, had not a trace of his older ob session of hate impinged on his clear ly outlined course of action. He was once more himself, by this time, walking with a limp that was scarcely discernible. But as he stole down from the higher ground and made his way back towards the West ingham chimney flares he became once more conscious of the whiter glare along the roadside he was so cautiously skirting. This, he remem bered, as he stole nearer, came from the headlights of a stalled limousine. Then he made a second and a more startling discovery. He knew, even before he caught sight of Train work ing over his helpless car, that it be longed to Enoch Golden. But what actually drew him closer to the spot was a glimpse of Margery Golden her self, in a gray fur motor coat, as she stepped from the body of the car and came full into the glare of the head lights, closer beside her stooping chauffeur. “Are we stalled?” he could hear the girl ask. “We’ll be off again in a minute or two, Miss Margery,” was Train’s pre occupied reply. "But I can t stand here helpless,” protested the girl. "I can’t wait. I must know what has happened to Da vid Manley.” “Whatever it. was, it’s over and done by this time.” "But he may be dead. He may be lying crushed under those fallen pil lars. I must go on. Tell father I couldn’t wait, that I’ve gone ahead on foot!” Legar, crouching back in the shaw ows, heard these hurried words and as hurriedly acted on them. Slinking back through the bushes, he swung about and followed the girl through the darkness. Yet It was not until the girl had passed well out of hailing distance of the headlighted car that Legar circled even more hurriedly forward and swung in again to intercept her. She was trudging, a little breath lessly, up a sandy slope, with her straining eyes still fixed on the mov ing lanterns about the ruined mauso leum. ■ Then, swinging apparently out of:! the empty air about her, a circle of steel, suddenly encompassing her arm®! brought her to an abrupt stop. With one quick movement Lega. tore the motor veil from her heat twisted it into a coil, and flung about her neck. And all the while tl Iron Claw, grappling at her arm, he/ her as a steel trap might. She was already dizzy with when she heard the sharp crack oia revolver shot close over her This was followed by a quick shit and a muttered oath. She felt her if forcibly flung from Legar’s arms i to the arms of another man pan ig breathlessly up the sandy slope, fie could see this man, even as he ] dd her from falling, stop to level hisi un at the fleeing figure of Legar. Fhe could see him shoot again, and km it was as he maneuvered to bring again, at the same moment that Train pout this shift of position that the and the plunging automobile came r er-watchful Legar, alert for the most throbbing and panting up to the scene, ivial advantage, saw his chance, the electric lamps throwing out theli/ winging his body suddenly free from wavering, long columns of white lighfts footing on the narrow ledge of as they came. Then the stranger. aPnetal where he stoed, he pendulumed rested fcy certain gasping and guiowards his momentarily unstable op gling sounds from the throat of thPonent, throwing his feet forward and half-garroted girl in his arms, stoope u Pward, as he did so with all the fore© down and tore the constricting v«of a football player kicking a double away from the slender, white colun punt. of her neck. And Margery, openi her eyes, saw that it was the Laui ing Mask bending above her. "It was Legar!” she gasped Train, followed by her father, ct panting up to where they stood. “And there he goes now!” cried* Laughing Mask, pointing down 3 long lane of light columning out a the car’s lamps. Across that river of light they could cai a K’limpse of a tall figure skulki jff into the darkness. “Follow that man with you ,r > the Laughing Mask suddenly cf° ut to the chauffeur. “No car could travel throuf 31111 ' try like that!” protested Trail “Then keep your lights on aiain road to the west here, so aj him up if he tried to brea> oug h on that side. I'll swing arod y the foundry yards and head him* 11 t -* le east!” And the next moment tf ian j n the yellow mask had disf re( * ' n the darkness. Golden and daugh ter stood staring after hii i rtl-n Ann Two minutes later th ac^ness | that had swallowed h jp was 1 stabbed by a series of 1 flas hes, followed by the repeat* °* a revolver. From the gloc nearer the shadowy piles of th' st ' ng^ aTn foundry came an answ serles shots. “That means he's r 1 the foundry, sir!” cried tk'’ te< * T rain as he swung his car i “Then, for God’s sa e * us there, as quick as you c commanded Enoch Golden as thf lurchod and pulsed and crawled^ etween the broken shrubbery, ; OUS Bearc h for some open pat! But both Legar J llß Pursuer were by this time beyond their line of vision. T h; perate - mind ed master criminal, tact ’ realizing that his enemy ssing close a * his heels, mounte<* g plle> propped flat, and emptied^ 3 olve f hito the 1 darkness, where I ' aug b i ng Mask i should have bee* But the wary er - dropping low , < beside an empt* 1 barrel, held his * fire and ! ® moment he , i heard the cri und footsteps j c along the sla’ 0 he once more * took up the p : ,j That pursu through a narrow h lane between pi,es of structural iron. It led through an abandoned boiler room, then on through a dimly lighted and low-roofed structuie of pulleys and lathes, and from there to the brighter lighted and higher roofed metal room ot the foundry itself. There, beside glowing furnaces half naked men toiled over incandescent annealing boxes and cauldrons of mol ten metal. There gigantic track cranes swung bowls of liquid fire from crucibles to mold beds. And there the harried Legar, be wildered by the sudden bright light, ran like a pelted hound down the sandy paths between forge and coke oven and cauldron crane. There, see ing his way blocked by a group of round-eyed Lithuanians, he Bwung, catlike, up into the iron network of the cable bridges, with Ills pursuer still close at his heels. And there, midway across that smoke-stained roof, that echoed with the tumult of thunderous hammers and directly over a king cauldron of molten steel, the two men came together. There Legar, with his metal claw hooked securely into the iron network above Ms head, swung about and faced his enemy. And there, on that grimy bridge high above the equally grimy workmen who left their forges and /fithes and cauldrons to witness the struggle, the enemies, who hadso long and bltf erly opposed each otter. found themstlves face to face for their final struggle. fet the man in the yellow mask satined the cooler headed of the two, for |s Legar struck snarling at his face V’ ducked low on his narrow perch] and at the same moment whipfd his revolver from the side pock j of his coat. Yet Legar, with a myement equally prompt, kicked vicidsly at the fingers clustered about the /un-butt before the weapon itself cou f be brought into use. The next mcient that weapon fell with a hiss an splash into the lake of molten m&l beneath them. /hen the struggle became one of tidon against tendon, of straining ilscle against muscle, of empty jnded mortal strength pitted against ortal strength. There, like animals t th© wild, high in some Amazonian yrie, the two strangely entangled igures fought and struggled and ilawed and struck. f In the matter of mere physical [Strength Legar seemed to have the advantage. And wlf \mder ordinary circumstances migyi have proved a disability could now fcfc turned to his advantage. For tha if on claw at the end of his right arm, hooked securely into the network of steel behind him, hel(j him there without effort and witlout strain. His opponent, on the otter hand, found it. no easy task to ma'e sure of his perch above that ev»’-intimidating cauldron of molten msal. His arm shook with the ten siu imposed on his overtaxed mus cb. His fingers became numb with gn, threatening to lose their pre- Insile power, and even as he fought ' weakened to a realization that he ust change liis held. The force of this unlooked-for im pact was too much for the man in the mask. He tottered !tack, caught fran tically at a soot-covsred steel bar be side him, dropped the full length of its diagonal course before he could make sure of his clutch, and came into vio lent collision with the heavy iron block of a crane ladle. There, half stunned by the blow, he fell sprawling across a polished steel cable which drooped floorward between the block and its empty metal pot. He tried to clutch that cable as he fell, but his speed proved too great and his over- taxed fingers were too weak. As he fell along its polished surface, how ever, it offered sufficient resistance to carry his limp body beyond the peril of that open lake of molten metal, which, his frantic brain kept telling him, meant death. And as he dropped weakly from the cable loop to a pile of molding sand lying between a cast ing box and an empty spill trough, a score of watching mm gave utterance to a shout of relief and a score of waiting hands were there to help him to his feet. So intent were tho se astounded iron workers on watching that perilous fall, however, that they paid scant atten tion to the second fitfire climbing spi derlike higher alonj the blackened ironwork of the blacllened roof. They caught no glimpse ol 'aim as he scram bled, sooty and panting, through the ventilating flue that opened on the roof itself. Nor did any eye follow | him as he crept, gorfflalike, along the j perilous slope of till it roof until he came to the end of the building. Along this end he found a lightning rod, run ning from the peak of its roof to the ground. He promptly tested the strength of this wire, satisfying him self carefully, foot by foot, by means of one hand and an iron hook which struck and clung to the metal with the vicious tenacity of an eagle’s claw. V, hen he reached the ground, still breathing heavily, hn looked cautious ly about. Then, making sure he was not observed, he slipped into the shad ow of a pile of iron ingots, once more waited and listened, and then, crouch ing low, crossed the foundry yard and climbed the high board fence sur rounding it. And a moment later the earkness of the night tad swallowed him up. (TO BE CONT NUED.)