Adventure, November 1915 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

The Gold Lust “That’s the answer,’’ declared Addams. “Jim, you confounded dude, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Wait till we come back. You can flirt with all the pretty girls to your heart’s content, and marry one of them if you want to, on the strength of your quarter of a million. “That’s so,” retorted Winton, determined to score, as he thought regretfully of his well-fitting flannels. “You said you were ~ going to do something of the sort yourself, didn’t your”’ He watched his sister’s flush and Addams’s slight embarrassment with ill-concealed amusement. “There’s one thing I want to do, right away,” said Addams, avoiding the issue. “Fave you got any marking ink, Peggy?” “Why I think so,” she said wonderingly. “For linen, you mean? I'll go and look for atc CHAPTER VIII THE MAN IN THE WHEEL-CHAIR Tt first day or two of the voyage proved uneventful. They had reached San Francisco in time to get some clothes, much to Winton’s satisfaction, whose slight but well-molded figure responded kindly to the ready-made outfit he secured. The first afternoon found him basking in the smiles of a pretty girl, ‘making hay while the sun shone” as he lightly dubbed _ the flirtation entered into in shipboard camaraderie by both himself and his charmer of the moment. Addams found the idle hours passed swiftly in the company of Peggy. All talk of the treasure was tabooed for safety’s sake, but the excitement of the quest was alive in both of them and they drew closer in the mutual glamour of the venture. There were no signs of Henley. They had made their individual ways to the train apparently unobserved and had noted noth- ' ing on the overland journey to arouse suspicion that they were being followed. The delay of getting their outfits for the sea trip had brought them almost last to the gangplank, but a quiet though close survey and mutual comparisons of the pas- sengers revealed none but the ordinary run of travelers. Only one person failed to appear, a man named Stevens, kept to his cabin by paralysis, they learned, and represented by 25 his nurse, an austere woman of about fifty, in regulation uniform, non-communicative, attentive to nothing but her duties. Selim, from his part of the ship, reported nothing that aroused suspicion, and their hopes of gaining the gold without inter- ference mounted high. On the evening of the third day, Addams, returning for a fresh supply of cigars to the cabin shared by Jim and himself, thought that he noticed some slight disarrangement of the things in the tray of the trunk he had bought at San Francisco. Closer inspection failed to justify his sus- picion. If the cabin had been searched an expert must have accomplished it. There was nothing definite upon which to base determination. The bedding of the two bunks was immaculately neat, the clothes in the trunk unwrinkled. Yet an evanes- cent suggestion persisted in Addams’s mind that the carelessly recorded mental image of his last look at the state-room differed from the picture before him in some tiny. detail, that, while it troubled, refused to be definitely recalled. He went on deck, rejoining Peggy, luxuriant in a becushioned: steamer-chair. He took the one next to hers, smoking as fragrant cigar thoughtfully. ‘Seen Jim?” he asked. “‘He’s hidden in the friendly shadow with Miss Belmont,” said Peggy. “He really thinks he’s in earnest this time. But then, he always does. She’s a charming girl, too. They’re going to stay in Honolulu for some time. They’ve got a cottage on the beach at Waikiki and want me to join in all sorts of plans. Of course I didn’t accept or re- fuse. I couldn’t, without hinting at some- thing mysterious in our own trip.” “Youre a trump card, always, Peggy,” said Addams, “You'd better talk with Jim,” she said. | *“‘He’s liable to get overconfidential. He does, you know,” she went on, “‘when he’s in love, or thinks he is.” “*Jim’s all right,”’ assured Addams, though making a mental note to once more warn that gentleman against carelessness. Both approximately the same age, there was a vast difference between the friends. In the old days, when Archer Addams played center at football, Winton was the volatile yell leader. At polo, with Addams playing back, a tower of strength for his team, certain of stroke, calm of judgment, Gomicbooks (E(0)