Lucile Tucker's slim, tapered fingers trembled slightly as she rested them against a steel-framed bookcase. She had paused to steady her shaken nerves, to collect her wits, to determine what her next move should be. "Who can it be?" her madly thumping heart kept asking her. And, indeed, who, besides herself, could be in the book stacks at this hour of the night?

"He is dead " Johnny Thompson felt the grip of the speaker's hand on his arm and started involuntarily. How could this strange fellow know that Frank Langlois was dead-if he was dead? And was he? They were surrounded by inky blackness. It was the thick darkness of a subterranean cavern, a mine. This was a gold mine. Three minutes ago their electric torch had flickered out and they had been unable to make it flash again.

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.

Roy Justin Snell wrote more than 75 novels for young adults under his own name and also using the pseudonyms David O'Hara, James Craig and Joseph Marino. His tales were mostly directed at boys, though he wrote at least one series of mysteries for girls.