of the train, the master marksman fired. He clipped the wrist below the gun
hand as it started its descent. The swinging weapon missed Chet's head, and its
owner flopped down between the cars, to jolt the crook who was hanging there.
Two thugs were thudding the cinders along the right of way, when The Shadow
arrived to catch Chet as he started a dizzy tumble from the car top. Up came
Chet, half to his feet, his collar clutched by a gloved hand. He heard a hissed
laugh in his ear, a tone of reassurance; then, as though taunting the very man
that he had rescued, The Shadow gave Chet a long forward pitch that carried him
through space.
DURING what seemed an everlasting moment, Chet's half-dazed mind jumped to
conclusions. He accepted the obvious; namely, that this black-clad fighter that
he couldn't see, must be an enemy like the others. Maybe Chet was an object of
dispute, but both sides seemed against him. Landing all fours on the car ahead,
Chet took a grip. Then, as The Shadow thumped the toe path beside him, Chet came
up and around, to punch hard at blackness.
It was double trouble for The Shadow.
Up ahead, another thuggish marksman was firing quick shots which
fortunately were wild. But when The Shadow tried to answer in kind, Chet's
interference ruined his aim. Suppressing Chet's blind punches were a job all its
own, calling for another heave that sent Chet forward to the runway.
Again, Chet gripped; this time, The Shadow reached him before he could
rise. A knee in Chet's back, The Shadow aimed for a ducking head up front, then
gave a sudden waver, to flatten beside Chet.
It fooled the dodging thug.
That crook had a real edge on The Shadow, what with the foolish
interference Chet supplied. Seeing The Shadow sink, the thug decided to take
better aim and make the next shot sure. What he didn't see were the hanging
ropes across the track, announcing the entrance to a tunnel. Nor did he feel
those slappers, because he was below their reach.
Such was the reason for The Shadow's sudden drop. He'd seen the hanging
menace up ahead. He was saving Chet's life again, and his own with it. As for
the tunnel, the thing that really threatened, The Shadow was turning it to his
advantage. It was to prove the next lifesaver.
Looming confidently from the front of the car, the crook picked the
darkness that surrounded Chet and aimed. He wanted to clip The Shadow for a
start, but the tunnel had first say. Like a mammoth bludgeon, an arch of rock
met the back of the crook's head and flattened him. A moment later, Chet was
eating smoke, amid a deafening roar that swept him like a deluge.
Chet knew then that The Shadow was a friend. He realized, too, why he had
been pitched to the forward car. This was a steel car, with a metal runway built
like a grille; not the type of strip-board toe path that ran atop a wooden car.
Half groggy, Chet couldn't have kept his grip on the car in back, which was why
The Shadow had sent him forward.
Smoke vanished with the roar as the train shot out from the tunnel.
Coughing, choking, Chet needed all the grip that he could give, as the freight
whipped hard around a curve. Cloaking his gun, The Shadow took a clutch on
Chet's arms, to swing him from the runway, and Chet offered no resistance. All
he did was glance ahead, to look for the menacing sharpshooter. But there wasn't
