The Crimson Flash
one. Opening his eyes sleepily, he propped himself up on one elbow and tried to peer about him. It was still dark. A stone wall rose a short distance above the cars on either side. Above and beyond the wall to the left great buildings loomed. From one of these, towering far above the rest, lights gleamed here and there. The others were totally dark.

“Big one’s a hotel, rest office buildings,” was Johnny’s mental comment. “But say, where have I seen this before?”

Lifting himself to his knees, he looked down the track in the direction they had just come. A tower pointing skyward appeared to have closed in on their wake. Turning, he looked in the opposite direction. A dull gray bulk loomed out of the dark.

“Chicago,” he muttered in surprise. “Of all places! We’ve come all the way from that jerk-water city of Amaraza to put on a show in good old Chi. Can’t be a bit of doubt of it, for yonder’s the Auditorium hotel, back there’s the Illinois Central depot, and ahead the Art Institute. Grant Park’s our destination. The situation improves. We’ll have some real excitement. Pant will be tickled pink.

“Pant! Oh, Pant!” he whispered hoarsely. “Pant!” He spoke the name aloud.

Receiving no answer, he climbed over the canvas piles to the spot where Pant had been.

“Gone,” he muttered. “Didn’t think he’d shake me like that!”

He dropped into gloomy reflections. What was his next move? He had counted on Pant’s assistance. Now he must go it alone.

“Oh, well,” he sighed at last, “I’ll just hang around and let things happen. They generally do.”

Before darkness came again things had happened—several things, in which the fortunes of Johnny Thompson rose and fell to rise again like bits of cork on a storm-tossed sea.

Before putting his hand on the iron rod to lower himself to the cinder strewn track, he gave himself over to a moment of recollection. He was thinking of this strange fellow, Pant. Again he groped his way in the dark cave in Siberia, with Pant’s all-seeing eye to guide him. Again he fought the Japs in Vladivostok. Again—but I will not recount all his vivid recollections here, for you have doubtless read them in the book called “Panther Eye.” It is enough to say that the incidents of this story proved beyond a doubt that Pant could see in the dark, but as to how and why he was so strangely gifted, that had remained 
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