The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Rope of Gold, by Roy J. Snell

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Title: The Rope of Gold

A Mystery Story for Boys

Author: Roy J. Snell

Release Date: July 6, 2013 [eBook #43102]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROPE OF GOLD***

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The Rope of Gold

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago New York

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright, 1929
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Dangling Ladder 11

II The Native Drum 27

III The Hidden Pitfall 43

IV He Who Walks Alone 54

V The Giant on the Wall 67

VI A Startling Discovery 79

VII The Voodoo Drum 87

VIII The Yellow Snake’s Teeth 98

IX The Jeweled Monkey 111

X Stowaways 126

XI The Drums 141

XII Curlie Gets Their Goat 148

XIII Crusoes For a Night 168

XIV The Marine King 178

XV Dreams 186

XVI The Call of the Drums 191

XVII The White Shadow 198

XVIII The Magic Telescope 210

XIX An Ape-Like Band 220

XX The Chest of Secrets 228

XXI Johnny’s Mission 241

XXII The Queen’s Ruby 249

XXIII The Battling Giant 258

XXIV The Story Is Told 266

XXV The March of Triumph 272

THE ROPE OF GOLD

CHAPTER I
THE DANGLING LADDER

Night was settling down over the mountain side. Already the valleys far below were lost in darkness. The massive fortress which the dwellers on the island of Haiti have always called the Citadel hung like a mountain cliff above a boy who, hot from climbing, had thrown himself on a bed of moss at the foot of a gnarled mahogany tree.

“Whew!” he exclaimed softly to himself. “Even three thousand feet above the sea here in Haiti it’s hot. Hot and dry. Fellow’d think—”

He broke short off to stare. A curious thing was happening. Out from a small dark opening some forty feet up the perpendicular wall of the massive abandoned fortification, something quite indistinct in the twilight had moved and was creeping slowly down the moss-grown wall.

“Like a snake,” he told himself, “only, here in Haiti, there are no snakes to speak of and certainly not one as long as that. Only look! It’s down to the window below; a full twenty feet.

“That window—” He caught his breath, then began to count. “One, two, three, four,—

“That’s the window of Curlie’s ‘laburatory’ as he calls it. It—why, it’s a plot! I should warn him. It—”

He half rose, preparatory to a race up the mountain side. Then he settled back to his seat on the ground.

“Couldn’t make it,” he told himself. “Ground’s too rough. Boulders there big as a house. Too far around, take a full hour to come in from the rear. By that time, if anything really serious is to happen, it will be over.

“Besides, if worst comes to