Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

858 tone was careful. He held a pebble in his hand so tightly that his knuckles showed white, but he did not cast it. He carefully sighted at a lizard on a rock. ‘Are you going to marry him?” he re- peated. Lynnie started to speak, but she had no no gift of coquetry. ‘““ Jimmy is only fifteen,” she said at last. The pebble dropped from Archer’s hand. They looked into each other’s eyes. They were enveloped in a silence, suddenly poignantly sweet, breathless. Lynnie rose to her feet. “ Uncle Gum- my—” she was beginning uncertainly. But Archer had taken her in his arms. She felt the thunderous pounding of his heart, the suffocating ecstasy of his kisses. “T love you, Lynnie—I love you,” he was saying in a low, desperate voice, which sounded like another’s. ‘ But I must not —I ought not—” With a quick turn of her strong young body she was out of his arms. “Me?” she asked a little wildly. “ You love me?” “You, of course,” he answered in the same low voice. ‘ Who else?” “Do you love me, Archer?” “ Lynnie—yes. But 1 oughtn’t to ‘tell you this. You are young—know nothing of men. Lynnie, you ought to have a fair shake at life—know many men. You ought to be with your Cousin Horace—I ought to talk to him first. What—what I’m doing isn’t right.” He took her in his arms and kissed her again. “ LT couldn’t love any man but you,” said Fanny Locklyn Brooke—“ not if you were to die this minute, and I should live on for- ever and ever! I—I—love you so much that I was resigned—well, almost resigned to Sophy Sanders when I thought you loved her. Azcher, are you sure?” ‘‘ Dearest—surer than sure.” ‘And Sophy?” She looked into his eyes with sweet seriousness. ‘‘ Archer, you've never held her in your arms like this—you have never kissed her—like this?” “ Like this? No, it had never been like this,” he told himself in the briet second vouchsafed him before answering. This ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. love for Lynnie transcended anything he had ever experienced. His sentimental pas- sages with Sophy dwindled into triviali- ties. Like this? He hadn’t known that life held anything like this. ‘“Lynnie, I love you—and nobody else.” “You’ve never held Sophy like this? You’ve never kissed her like this?” “No,” said Archer. His lips were on hers. “I never did.” TX. UncLe Gummy sat in a rickety chair just inside“his cabin door. He looked feeble and pain racked. His toothless smile of joy at sight of Lynnie turned to a scowl as her companion entered. “T tole you—” he was beginning. “This isn’t a, doctor, Uncle Gummy,” Lynnie spoke soothingly. ‘“ This is Archer Mackenzie. He’s my friend.” She smiled shyly at Archer. ‘ He’s from Alabama.” “His face looks familiar,” said Uncle Gummy. “ I’ve seen him somewheres. If he’s an undertaker,” he continued peevish- ly, “‘ he kin save his steps—” “ Of course he’s not—not that,” came in horrified tones from Lynnie. ‘“‘ How foolish of you, Uncle Gummy!” “ They’re perched around the camp like buzzards,” the old man _ complained. ‘“* Everywhere you go you see ’em waitin’— jist waitin’.” He broke off suddenly. “ Did you fetch the buzzard feather?” he de- manded. ‘No. tle.” * Well, why didn’t vou fetch it like I asked you? She said if you wear it behind the ear it ll take out swellin’s.” “ But that’s just superstition, Uncle Gummy. You and I don’t believe that.” ‘‘T do,” he replied obstinately. “I be- lieve it. There’s a heap sight more in charms and signs than what most folks think they is. They’s a lot in ’em. And I wish you’d fetched the buzzard feather.”’ “ Well, I will to-morrow,” she assured him gravely. “ See that you do,” he rejoined fretfully. *« See that you do.” But I brought a hot water bot- conmicboooks CO im