Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

918 “ Been timber cruising across the range?” “ Not exactly—” “You ain’t a forest ranger?” * Not me—” “Working for the Pacific Timber out- fit, maybe?” ce No—” “No? Well, excuse my asking. Few folks come through to Hope that ain’t do- ing one or t’other. Of course your business is your own affair—” Hand paused suggestively, but the stran- ger did not answer. ‘‘ You look like a fel- low named Valentine, cruiser, came through here about two years back,” Hand went on. “If you hadn’t told me different I’d have called you Valentine—”’ ‘““My name is Francis—Tom Francis, of Boston—” ‘“So you said. So you said. Funny re- semblance, ain’t it?” ‘““T suppose many men look alike,” the stranger smiled. ‘“‘ Now, about hiring a Jaunch. Everybody I talked to seemed to think you were the man to see.” The storekeeper considered the matter with grave deliberation. ‘ Don’t know where you could get a launch,” he mur- mured, ‘“ unless, of course, somebody hap- pened to be going up Columbia way and would take a passenger. Well, now! Here’s Miss Natalie Reed was going to Columbia to meet her father, coming up from Frisco on the Pacific. Why not ask her?” Til, Tuer Walrus, Natalie Reed’s thirty foot, trunk cabin boat, swung out of the shallow, protected bay that served as a harbor for Hope, though the town had no other com- merce than log rafts, an occasional tug and such motor boats as this. Natalie Reed sat in the cockpit steering, and the stranger, Tom Francis, sat close by. Francis had tried addressing various civil remarks to the young woman with surpris- ing lack of results. Then he gave up con- versation and put her down as a queer one. Queer she undoubtedly was. Even her agreement to carry him in the boat as far as Columbia was made in monosyllables during which she kept her glance averted. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. She was as unsociable as she was lovely to look at and lovely as—Francis thought of various comparisons for her beauty, but none of them seemed to fit exactly. The morning had dawned with a thicken- ing along the horizon that slowly filmed over the heavens until sky and sea were the same dull gray, and gathering mist be- gan to narrow the visible world to a little planet that held just a boat and a man and a woman. A gentle drizzle of rain began. The boat shredded slow, glassy swells of the Pacific with a steady “ thrush-thrush ” that was soothing. The engine droned. Occasionally a gull screamed as if to em- phasize the loneliness, . Tom Francis’s eyes began to narrow thoughtfully when more than an hour had passed. He was an observing man. It was evi- dent he was not unacquainted with the sea and sea ways, even as he knew the wild coast mountains and forest. After that long silence: “Don’t you head north pretty soon?” he remarked. Apparently Natalie Reed did not hear. “You must have to keep a long way off- shore,” Francis tried again. By way of answer she glanced at him and a second time he caught the full force of her anger, her contempt, more, her ac- tive hatred as it stared from her eyes. He exclaimed involuntarily: ‘ What’s wrong?” He got no answer. She only looked him through and now a slight, scornful smile curled her lips. “See here, what’s the matter with you— with us? Why do you stare—” “* Did you ever catch a shark?” Francis looked his surprise. She went on with sudden vehemence: “I have. A shark is dangerous, but he’s a coward. He knows only one way to fight, and when he at- tacks he rolls over, exposing his vulnerable point. Then you knife him. There are human sharks—but perhaps you know that—” ‘“T know that you have a mighty queer way of talking!”’ Francis began to feel that he had fallen -into queer hands indeed. “Perhaps I am too subtle for you, Mr. Valentine—” oO Conmiclbooks.€© nn