Project Gutenberg's A Desperate Chance, by Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

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Title: A Desperate Chance
The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative

Author: Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

Release Date: January 12, 2004 [EBook #10690]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A DESPERATE CHANCE:

OR

THE WIZARD TRAMP'S REVELATION,

A Thrilling Narrative.

By OLD SLEUTH.

[Illustration: "He Placed the Ladder of Saplings Across the Abyss."]

1897

CHAPTER I.

THE CAMPFIRE IN THE GULCH--AN ALARM--THE SOLITARY
FIGURE--UNDER COVER--A WHITE MAN--"HAIL,
FRIEND!"--A CORDIAL MEETING--A SECOND STRANGE
CHARACTER.

"Well, Desmond, we've taken a desperate chance, and so far appear to be
losers."

The circumstances under which the words above quoted were spoken were
weird and strange. A man and a mere youth were sitting by a campfire
that was blazing and crackling in a narrow gulch far away in the Rocky
Mountains, days and days travel from civilization.

The circumstances that had brought them there were also very strange and
unusual. Desmond Dare was the son of a widow who owned a small farm in
New York State. There had been a mortgage on this farm which was about
to be foreclosed when Desmond, a brave, vigorous lad, sold his only
possession, a valuable colt, and determined to enter a walking match for
the prize. He was on his way to the city where the match was to take
place when in a belt of woods he heard a cry for help. He ran in the
direction whence the cry came and found three tramps assailing a fourth
man. The vigorous youth sprang to the rescue and drove the three tramps
off, and was later persuaded by the man he had rescued to go with him to
a rock cavern. There the lad beheld a very beautiful girl of about
fourteen whose history was enveloped in a dark mystery; he also learned
that the man he had rescued was known as the wizard tramp. The latter
was a very strange and peculiar character, a victim of the rum habit,
which had brought him away down until he became a tramp of the most