Adventure Magazine Cover — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

the gathering darkness, only to reassert their presence by bobbing lights. From the lower town came the murmur of busy life, punctuated by the occasional rumble of gun-carriages. Somewhere in the town was the spy and the stolen paper; or had the spy escaped before the guards could be set? _ “Likely enough he got away before any order was given,” muttered Willis. “Once he got his paw on that paper he wouldn’t stay round here. Yet there must have been some plan, some idea that there was such a paper. He had to know where it was and be ready to pounce on it the minute the officer turned his back. Well, wish I could get a chance to grab some of old Mont- calm’s papers.” He rose and started down the street. The night was bright under the starlight, and once more the fancy obssessed him that the sharp- roofed houses were so many witches. Finding his leg tiring, he seated himself under a shade- tree and. wondered where the girl was this night. In Ticonderoga? In Montreal? Withastart he swept his gaze over the broad street and dis- covered he was in the neighborhood of the Lidindick house. At first he could not decide whether he was above or below it. “Trifle above it,” he decided, taking his bearings by the lighted town-house. ‘“Didn’t suppose I’d ever want to see it again. Lord, how she dressed me down!”’ He writhed in mortification at his thoughts and fought against his inclination to view the place again. And she so wild and incompre- hensible! In what did she charm him? He had seen other women in New York and Philadelphia who were much more beautiful than she. In truth, she always reminded him of a boy, and this was not because his first glimpse of her was when she was masquerading in breeches. Yet no other woman had interested him. In a conventional fashion he always had sup- posed that some time he would select a Connec- ticut girl and settle down near his people. That would be their wish; mate with some one they knew and understood. But this flighty, in- corrigible maid, who repulsed him, then Jured him on; who had been soft and lovable with him and in the next moment had taunted and flouted him. “Tt’s because she’s so different from me, so different from the women I’ve always known,” he groaned. ‘That must be it. It’s because I could never tell what she would be up to next —soft or with her claws out. “God help me, a poor fool! I can’t help loving her. But I can keep away from that house and everything that reminds me of her. At least I can do that.” Curiously enough this was one of the very things he could not do. The dead house at- tracted and drew him although he knew the The Bushfighters 39 sight of it would only put a new edge on his — misery. Reason told him he was absurd. He had seen her that one night in New York. He had seen her twice in Albany. Her conduct was most. questionable. His New England Puritanism had _ been weakened none by his experience as an Indian- fighter. Putnam had spoken to his common. sense in saying she was not the kind of a girl ~ for him to marry. She was his antithesis. He had been brought up to believe that harmony could never be built up out of contradictions. And still that unconquerable and unreason- able thing called love gripped his soul, and he knew he could never escape its thrall. And he rose and sought the house. There were no red lights to advertise ic this © night. He halted and stared at the darkened windows. He trespassed on the little green and placed a foot where he had found her cloak on the night of her flight. The house had died with its master, Jan the Rogue. This somber thought appealed to his mood. More the pity his love had not died that night—— eq THE noise made by the door-latch $9 would have been imperceptible to ears ef untrained tocatch the minutiz of sound. It startled him more than would the explosion of all of Lord Loudoun’s cannon. : Could the Rogue’s ghost be back in the house? Only ghosts had no need to lift latches. He felt swept with fire as he stole toward the door and halted at the edge of the porch. His heart, which always beat evenly in a forest foray, began pounding like a smithy’s sledge. He could swear the door was slowly opening. The porch shut out the starlight and his eyes were of no use. Yet he was positive he sensed a motion in the door. He believed he could feel it opening. oe With a light bound, and entirely forgetting his wounded leg, he was across the porch. The latch clicked harshly. As he lifted it and pulled he heard the tardy rasping of a bolt. With a yank he threw the door open and sprang inside, one hand holding the rifle, the other flung out ahead of him. The butt of his rifle smashed against some article of furniture. There sounded a faint patter of feet, and her presence filled the room with a wonderful fragrance. ‘Elizabeth!’ he whispered, yet so softly that the sound did not pass beyond his lips. The stairs betrayed her, and he was bounding upward in pursuit. There would be a back exit of course, but he trusted himself to keep so close that she could not gain it without being caught. At the head of the garret stairs he was confused for a moment; then a board squeaked and he glided to a door and through it and bumped his head against a beam. COMICLMOOOKS 7. et * m e. < . a ms a oe ta, ee Be ft a oe fi ie ae 7 ul A ail , : hess Reick? * fi ae com yee