Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAN WHO MASTERED TIME. 693 back through time. At intervals I would Stop and examine the landscape. “The wind was blowing almost continu- ally from the north during all these cen- turies. But I was not using the helicopters, and I flew into it slowly, keeping my ap- proximate position without great difficulty. I tried to hold myself near the south center of the island, and look northward. I was right in going back through time, I soon discovered. From close to the ground where I stopped once, I could see a rolling hill near by that had a familiar contour. I cannot describe it to you, gentlemen, but once I saw it from that angle, I knew it was in the landscape we had seen from the jaboratory. ‘““ Then I found the tree. There was no -house. No snow either, for I had chanced then to stop in a summer season. The tree was too small. I chose a ten years later time world, and watching the dials closely, descended at a ten and a half year later period. I had struck it exactly—within a week or two it must-have been from the time world father and I had observed.” There was a stir among Loto’s little audi- ence. Georgie sucked in his breath sharply. “Oh! And then you—” “‘T had occupied some eight hours with this search. The dials had stopped now at twenty-eight thousand two hundred odd years. I was at that instant flying at an altitude of no more than a few hundred feet. It was again early morning; just after sunrise—that familiar, snowy land- scape father and I had seen from the Jabora- _ tory. “The house lay below me, with its in- closure and outbuildings; I circled over it, staring down through the floor window. The Frazier motors are greatly muffled, as you doubtless know, but even so their sound carried down to the house. A figure came out into the inclosure, and stared upward at me. It was the girl—in a fur garment, but bareheaded—watching my plane. Be- fore I could think what to do, three huge dogs—each of them the size of a pony— came -leaping from one of the outbuildings and stood in a group, baying up at me with snarling voices of such volume and power that they made my blood run cold. _ “J was circling slowly over the house, cursing my lack of caution and still too confused to do anything, when the figure | of a man appeared in the inclosure—a man in furs and bareheaded like the girl. He stood head and shoulders over her. Evi- dently the noise of the dogs blotted out the sound of my motors. He did not look up into the air, but striding angrily to the girl, struck her with the flat of his hand full across the mouth. Then he dragged her cowering into the house.” CHAPTER V. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER. “¥ HAD straightened out, and was flying south. The howling of the dogs died away. Without realizing where I was going, I headed down the wind. Soon I was over the water. I had risen, and in the morning light could see the landlocked bay into which the main channel of the Hudson emptied; the bay itself had an en- trance to the sea almost at the river’s mouth. - “It was midwinter, I afterward learned. The river and the bay both seemed frozen -over with a mantle of snow on their ice. i passed above an island—Staten-: Island, no doubt—and mechanically swung to the west. ‘What was I to do? I had several rifles in the plane, as you know—and one of the latest Collinger hand guns. My instinct was to land at the house boldly, overawe its inmates with my weapons, and carry off the girl. That was a fatuous thought. I very soon realized that for all I knew they might have the power to strike me dead with some weapon totally unknown. ‘““T was still flying west. I found myself far out over Jersey, and still I had decided nothing. There were houses beneath me— even a little village or two—white, and blending with the landscape. But I did not heed them, though fortunately I had sense enough to ascend to a high altitude where I could escape observation. “The sun was rising above the sea behind me, and at last I swung about to face it. As it mounted higher—it was moving at about oO CORNICLOOKSsEO