The Red Lure

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright, 1926
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The White Gleam 9

II Sudden Catastrophe 23

III Mysterious Sounds 38

IV Tree Hay and a Jaguar 47

V Narrow Escapes 58

VI Lost in the Jungle 65

VII Peril in the Dark 77

VIII Death Ahead 87

IX “It’s Death an’ Destruction” 100

X Johnny’s Ghost Walks 114

XI Provisioned for a Long Journey 128

XII A Bronze Beauty 135

XIII Purring Shadows 151

XIV Forgotten Tribes 159

XV The Hidden City 169

XVI Pant Sets a Trap 177

XVII The Spanish Girl Reappears 185

XVIII Pant Springs the Trap 191

XIX Capturing a Black Shadow 199

XX Century Old Caverns 209

XXI Trapped 218

XXII Magic Power 228

XXIII The Passing of the Ghost 237

XXIV Blind Drifting 242

XXV The Battle of Rio Hondo 252

THE RED LURE

CHAPTER I
THE WHITE GLEAM

As Johnny Thompson bent over the black waters of the river he thought he heard a stealthy movement behind him. Before he could decide whether or not his eyes had deceived him he caught the reflection of a sudden white gleam on the dark surface of the water. At the same time something told him to dive, and dive he did. With the rocket-like speed that was his, he shot straight into the water, then away beneath the surface. He rose some ten yards downstream. After one deep, silent breath, he grasped a red mangrove branch for support, then paused to listen.

He did not listen long, for there came a sudden wild swirl of water close beside him.

“Alligator!” he breathed, as with a sudden and mighty tug at the mangrove branch he threw himself clear of the water and out upon the bank.

Here he paused to listen again. Catching no sound, he began creeping back toward his first position, the foot of the path that had been cut to the river.

All this time his mind was working on double-quick time. What had caused that sound behind him there on the bank—man or beast? What was the white gleam? Was it, after all, only a product of his overwrought mind? The whole day had seemed full of brooding menace.

“No,” he told himself stoutly, “it was not all imagination. The sound might have been—but the white gleam? No. I saw that. After all, though, it might have been only the reflection of a white heron in silent flight.”

Night was coming on. It would soon be dark. He did not care for that. His flashlight was in his pocket. As he crept forward through the thick tangled brush he seemed to feel the swift power of the dark old river. Rio Hondo, they called it—Black River. And black it was. Johnny had never before seen water that could so perfectly reproduce the black gleam of polish ebony. And yet, somehow, he had come to think of the river as his friend. That was how he came to be there now. Pant, his pal, was away. The thirty black and brown faces about camp had seemed singularly strange and unfriendly, so he had come to the river for comfort. And now, how had it repaid him? Had it in that white gleam given him a friendly warning, or had it tricked him into a place of great peril, into danger of being eaten by an alligator?

Suddenly his thoughts came to an end. Sooner than he expected he broke through the “bush” into the path. Starting back, he stared for a second in silence.

“No one here,” he whispered. “But wait; some one has been