Fighting for fortune

Dean Mercer drew a breath of relief as he stepped from the musty law office of his former employer, Russell Montague, into the open air. He knew that he had made the most moment...

Unconscious of the discovery his enemy had made, Dean Mercer walked with rapid steps in the direction of the more attractive portion of the town, where the better class of dwell...

After what we have said of Tim Downey, it is to be expected that he would act promptly in doing what he could to baffle Dean Mercer in his purpose. Unexpectedly he had come into...

Besides the mortification of having been left behind by what looked like his own negligence, he realized that for two or three reasons it was necessary for them to get to Spring...

Dean Mercer saw the tumble of his friend with dismay, thinking he would be killed, but the stage driver did not seem to notice the catastrophe. In fact, he seemed to be obliviou...

“It is too late to see the shipbuilder or Mr. Durand, the lawyer, to-night,” decided Dean. “Yes, we’ll sleep on the boat to-night. I am very anxious to see it.”

It was past midnight and the silence of the night was broken only by the tread of some weary watchman on duty or the hurried step of some belated traveler.

At least so Rodney Darringford found it. When he awoke the morning after the events depicted in the last chapter, it was in a room at a hotel, and with him was his companion of...

Rodney hastened in the direction of the hotel, not daring to look to the right or left. His hand in his pocket, he held fast to his ill-gotten gains, wishing he had never seen i...

Dean Mercer had arisen from his berth early on that eventful morning, the proudest in his life. As he went upon the deck of the _Spray_, realizing that he was its commander, he...

An ominous silence fell upon the little group while Judge Oglesby carried on his conversation with the person in Springfield. One and all listened with deep interest to the answ...

“Put on all the steam you can. I have sworn that we would show the fools at Millville that we have still the best boat. We win to-day, or Ebenezer Darringford doesn’t own this b...

But Colonel Darringford seemed to have suddenly been changed to a madman. In spite of the iron-clad rule of navigation that he was breaking; in spite of the doom that awaited hi...

On the morning of the third day after the fire, all Millville knew that Dean Mercer had disappeared, taking with him, it was believed, nine thousand dollars in stolen money.

He could not give any intelligent explanation and awoke, as it were, to the horrible realization that he was the inmate of what seemed to him a prison, but which he was soon to...

The arm of the law is strong--it crushes hope out of a man’s life sometimes, in the worst class of prisons. In a reform school it deals even more strictly than in a penitentiary...

Dean grasped the newspaper eagerly, replaced the ventilator and was soon seated on his bunk and looking over the columns of the journal that was welcome as a friend from home.

“If it wasn’t for father I shouldn’t care so much,” said Marcus. “It seems rough on us both; you just as you were getting started and I with the papers and money in my possessio...

“I’ll attend to all that. I mean it, Dean! I’ve been planning at it a score of ways. To-day I made a great discovery. What you have told me decides me. My father needs my help....

Dean Mercer was older and better educated than Marcus Ellison, and yet the latter took the lead in the first stage of their hurried flight from the vicinity of the reform school...

“Simply this: We must go back over the trail by which you were brought here step by step, to discover, if possible, the men and their motives in taking you away.”

A man left the inner room somewhat reluctantly, and the man the boys supposed to be Daley led the way to a table just around a jog in the wall, from that at which sat Dean and M...

The discovery worried him. The men were going to his former home. Their plot led them to the most dangerous place for Dean that the latter could possibly venture to.

Marcus Ellison had only one thought in view as he rode in the stagecoach from Springfield with Daley and Spofford, and later entered the hut near the river at Millville, and tha...

There had come a thundering knock at the front door of the house, and the judge hastened to open it, to admit a half a dozen excited men--the ones Marcus Ellison had just called...

When the money was received, and after Tim had paid off Daley and Spofford, he and Rodney decided to join forces, and go off “on a good time” to Columbus, a large city west of S...

Tim Downey started violently. He was shrewd enough to trace a clue of importance as to the thief of the bank notes in the tavern keeper’s words, and he replied eagerly:

Encouraged by the kind words of Mr. Montague, Evaline Oglesby began at once to tell the story Jack Carboy had told her, piecing together the parts the old sailor had described i...

Among those at the hearing when Dean so unexpectedly obtained his freedom for a time was Colonel Darringford, his countenance showing his disappointment and displeasure as the y...

Dean Mercer’s heart beat with unwonted rapidity as he saw the officers and anticipated that they were intending to arrest him. Arrest again at that stage of his work meant defea...

The journey to Portsmouth was unmarked by any incident of importance or excitement. They had, after abandoning the boat, crossed the country on foot, and reached the village fro...

They were pursuing a tortuous path along a dry river course in a valley, and it was not difficult to keep them in view and be near to them at the same time, and Marcus and Dean...

Both boys were too astonished to speak. The manner of the woman indicated an entire absence of any vicious or insane idea. She seemed to be acting from a friendly and coherent m...

They were hungry and sleepy, but about eight o’clock that morning several vehicles passed down the road near them, and a boy came by with a basket of apples, and Dean ventured t...

“Particularly so. I keep very shady, for that Mercer may have the police looking for me; so I dare not venture to Millville. In the first place, I must have a quiet and safe roo...

Tim had replaced his old clothes with new ones, and having an opportunity to secure cheap the discarded suit of a lackey, he presented a decidedly comical appearance in his atti...

The news of the happening of the last few days flew rapidly, as news good and bad usually does. The papers in Springfield devoted columns with flaring headlines, to the developm...