10 Short Novels Magazine — page 113: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

covered boulder at her side. There was a roaring report. A jut of flame. Lou Dillard dropped flat upon her face behind Jinx Herbert’s heavy pack. With trembling fingers she drew the little auto- matic pistol, crouched there waiting, wide-eyed, alert. Sound of that shot awakened Jinx Herbert. But for the first thirty seconds he did not move so much as a finger. The big rock on which he lay was a natural sounding board. He could hear shuffling - footsteps moving cautiously across the snow. Men’s voices. They had attacked his dummy camp He grinned, Miawed the pistol out of his belt into his left hand and loosened the rifle in the sling on his back. Then, like a great turtle peering out of its shell, he raised his head and squinted out across the gray-white barrens. He saw two crouching figures. Both men were armed with rifles. Both were watching that little camp directly below. _A suspicion of movement beside the fire at the base of the big rock caught his eye. His pistol jerked up, then dropped slowly. He swore. Lou Dillard. Jinx Herbert came suddenly half up- right. Even as his heavy service pistol roared at the two men, Pug Mincher rounded a little hillock one hundred yards in the rear. But Jinx Herbert did not see Pug Mincher. In response to that roaring report Tick Elisworth’s long body jerked up as though yanked upright by a pair of unseen hands. He cried out hoarsely, clutched at his throat, sprawled flat upon his face. Jinx Herbert’s gun twitched aside at Johnny Boston; but the eockney had seen that stabbing flash. He rolled over and over and came up on a knee behind a rock twenty feet away. Three bullets from Jinx Herbert’s gun followed the little he tumbling body. But none scored a it. OU DILLARD came to her feet and scurried about the base of the big boulder. She saw Pug Mincher coming toward her. With a little cry of dismay she turned at right angles and ran as she had never run before. Pug Mincher hesitated briefly, then followed the flee- ing girl. Jinx Herbert heard Lou Dillard’s ery of dismay. Just for a second his eyes twitched aside from the spot where Johnny Boston’s snow-covered figure lay. The little cockney sighted quickly and fired. The bullet struck Jinx Herbert’s gun hand, caromed off the butt of the weapon, and, its force half spent, crashed = into his left shoulder. The Frozen Empire * * * 111 The big policeman spun half about. His pistol flew from his numbed fingers. His big hands pawed the air; then he fell headlong over the edge of the little preci- pice Jinx Herbert landed on his back in a three-foot drift near the smouldering fire thirty feet below. Half dazed he sprawled flat upon the white ground. But Jinx Herbert was not out. The fall had shaken him badly but his head was clear when Johnny Boston, rifle tightly gripped in both hands, approached the little camp two minutes later. Herbert could feel the warm blood trickling down = from the reopened wound on his The little cockney approached to with- in three feet of the prostrate man. Jinx Herbert could feel the gunman’s eyes upon him. He did not move a muscle. The toe of a boot flipped his head over. Through half-shut eyes the policeman saw the rifle in Johnny Boston’s hand turned downward. Johnny Boston was not going to take any chances. The big redcoat looked dead. He had come to life once before. There was one sure way of making certain this did not happen a sec- ond time. The little cockney’s index finger was tightening on the trigger when Jinx Her- bert went into action. So swiftly that even Johnny Boston’s quick eyes never knew how it happened, Herbert’s long right arm swept out. That rigid arm knocked the little cockney’s feet neatly from under him. His rifle exploded harm- lessly in the air. Johnny Boston was on his feet like a cat. A slapping blow caught him along- side the head. He crashed headlong into the rock. The rifle was snatched from his hands. Crouching on a knee, gasping for breath, he saw that heavy gun descend. He willed to jump aside; but his body failed to respond. The gun barrel] landed with a sickening crunching sound atop his head. With a single whimpering sigh Johnny Boston crumpled upon the snow —dead. Dead also was Tick Ellsworth. Leaving the two men where they had fallen, Jinx Herbert shouldered his pack. He could see Lou Dillard and Pug Mincher quarter of a mile away racing across the open toward the cedar thicket. The girl was gaining ground momentarily, but Min- Siond rifle half-lifted, was threatening er. But Pug Mincher did not shoot. Her- bert had not expected him to. But just as she was about to enter the black-shad- owed thicket Lou Dillard fell. Jinx Her- bert cried out hoarsely, caught the rifle from his back. Leaning against the top Comichboo “S)