Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

THE GREAT OUTLAW. where you have friends. I can’t bear to think of you in this disturbed country.” ‘““ But what shall I say?” “ You must trust to luck,” he answered lightly. He spoke to the men again, and they went off to prepare the horses. But just then something happened that Midge did not understand. The men and the White Horseman all three stood still, stiff, listen- ing intently. She could not hear a sound. The natives dropped down, their ears to the ground. “What do they hear?” Midge whis- pered. ‘“* Horsemen,” he answered. One native said something; the White Horseman interpreted. - ‘One horseman,” he says. ‘I thought there were more. But they hear better than I do. Anyhow, we had better wait. Come behind one of those rocks. Don’t move or speak. They waited, it seemed ages—actually it was a quarter of an hour, Then a speck came in sight, grew into the size of a mouse, a dog, a horse—and proved to be one of the White Horseman’s own men. He dropped from his horse, exhausted, salaamed low, and poured out a mass of words in a voice faint with fatigue. The White Horseman interpreted to Midge. “ This man is my personal servant. He has been with me alone often, and knew of this as one of my secret haunts. He followed us to tell me that the British troops are all over the place and have left a strong guard at my last camp. It won't be safe for you to go back to-day, anyhow. We will push on a bit and give them time to disperse. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk their finding you on the way.” Sorry! Midge’s heart beat out a happy hymn as they prepared to move on. The sun was high when they halted in a rocky fastness, a miniature of the White Horse- man’s firsts camp, only with a wonderful view across to the eternal snows. They dismounted, and the White Horse- man made a seat for Midge out of his own and his men’s cloaks. All round was the stony ~ dust-brown desert, with the low ® tufts of thorn scrub, and great circle of rocks a dipped down to another level der-strewn waste. The White Horseman fockotl’ at 1 Mic with an almost comic dismay. #2 = “Tiffin, by Jove!” he exclaimed. ‘“'What do you suppose it will be?” = He called to the man. They had two filled water bottles waeee was a thing so precious that they carried it even in the heat of the fight; they also had managed to seize a few biscuits and some sticks of milk chocolate. They said something to their chief, and he nodded approval. They disappeared, leaving his servant with him and Midge. “ They think they can find something— a desert delicacy,” he said, with his rare smile. “ Shall we begin or wait?” “Wait,” she answered. “I’m not a bit hungry.” Indeed, mortal hunger could not touch her. Was the hunger of her soul not being fed as if by a miracle in the desert? The White Horseman lay on the ground at her feet, raised on his elbow. His eyes, dark and violent, were yet filled with a joy eq to her own. “ Midge—your marriage? pened?” he asked. She told him in a few words. about Lady Lydd’s mortal illness. “So you will be married,” he said, with that strange ruthless urge to torture both himself and her. “I must bear that, too.” “She may not die,” said Midge very low. “ Of course, she will. That’s Sir John’s luck!” And he gave his callous little lawgh. The two natives came back, clambering up from below, agile as cats. They carried queer looking green things the size of large eggs. They set to make a fire of the roots of thorn scrub, while the third man rede off on outpost duty in case any horseman came in sight. The green things turned out to be a cross between a fruit and a vegetable, rather like crumbling bread inside, and, cooked over the fire, they had a pungent, bitter sweet taste. They ate them first and afterward a biscuit and a little chocolate, What hap- Also COMICLooO <S C© a i"