Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

= hes fb ithe FOO 5) SS Ne £0 OF Ee a WITS Bebe U Praia pa RePaY ele ie heh Mea ps eS Pte Ue dT ' YUAN ECaeaSS cece Ee gee Vrs Fat 170 me IC tens Gey 516 ‘“ M-m-m,” responded Bill, “ Til have to take your word for it. Shan’t be long.” In five minutes Bill returned from his trip through the underground passage. His face was jubilant. “Some haul,” he exclaimed, “‘I thought they might be members of some secret society or bootleggers, but they’re even more valuable still. They’re counterfeiters. There’s a press, dies and all the whole lay- out down in that kitchen. Going to help me take that bunch into town?” “Do you really need help to herd a lot of roped crooks to jail?” inquired Nick, elancing at May. ‘“ Not so’s you’d notice it,” laughed Bill. “You stay. I'll be back for the pair of you.” Dawn was breaking as Bill marched his tribe of prisoners away. May looked up at the rose-tinted sky. Then she gazed at the overturned truck, the shriveled, black- ened grass. Her lips trembled. “Guess I’ll have to make our steel man walk back to the barn before daylight,” re- marked Nick. A sob was his answer. Nick abruptly put down the keyboard and turned to look at the girl. She was sitting on the ground; her face in her hands finding relief for tired, overstrained nerves in tears. When she felt Nick’s arm around her she leaned con- fidently against him and presently quieted down. “May,” said Nick after a long silence. There was no answer. May was asleep. An hour or more passed. Bill came back from the delivery of his prizes. He wads not given to expression of sentiment, but there was a soft light in his eyes as he looked down at the smiling face of Nick and the peaceful, unconscious one of his sister. “Sitting here on the damp grass like THE iv} Next Wee ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. that,” he remarked. After a pause, he added: “Love is a queer thing.” Nick nodded. Bill shifted uneasily. ‘‘How about breakfast?” he asked, then he recollected something else. He looked around. “ Say?” ‘he asked, “‘ Where’s the colossus?” “Gone,” said Nick. “Gone! Where?” ‘““ He walked through those bushes there. You can see the marks of his passage. That’s all I know about him except—that he must have kept straight on down the slope, across the s ‘sea. He’s miles away by now.* Fathoms deep. Jammed against some rock at the ‘bottom of the ocean most likely.” “But how—?” gasped Bill. “Simple enough,” explained Nick with a faint smile, “ I’d just started him moving when May collapsed. After that—I just forgot. That’s all there is to tell.” “Vl say—love is queer,” muttered Bill, then he went on disconsolately, “ all your work gone for nothing. Does May know?” “Not yet, and we’re not going to bother her. She’s had enough to last for a while.” Bill pondered this a moment. Presently the glum expression of his face merged to a grin. “Tell you what,” he said, “ we'll go fifty fifty. Ill get five thousand reward out of the capture of those counterfeiters. Half of the reward is no more than your right anyhow. You can start right in and make another steel man and then get married.” ‘“* 'You’ve got that wrong, Bill,”’ said Nick, ‘“* Married first and then I’ll start to work again, but it won’t be on another steel man. I'll develop the same idea along the lines of wireless power and control for airplanes and submarines. More useful. Anyhow we'll talk it over with May. Meanwhile, break- fast comes before all else.” END U Uw we will give you a Novelette of thrilling Western adventure —“ Jeremiah Parsons—He-Man,”’ by Harry Adler; also the start of a series of Western humorous tales by Earl Wayland Bowman ; likewise, celebrating the opening of the baseball season—" Blondes and Bleachers,’’ by Beatrice Ashton Vandegrift. oO Gomicdookssco