Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

ey hae Per \ Pye ARE 090 saa § reckon you don’t know Travis. You'll be sorry you rode over this way. An’ what- ever he does to you, nobody will interfere!” He went outside, locked the door. Edna stood for a time, thinking of Nay- lor’s words. Their suggestion of impending evil had filled her with dismay, but it had -been the man’s manner which had really convinced her of the hopelessness of trying to escape. Naylor was impressed. swith a sense of Travis’s omnipotence. It was evident that Naylor felt that when once Travis decided, there was absolutely no use in attempting to fight back. One might as well surrender with what grace one could. Curiously, Edna bad received the same impression of the man. Facing him in his house she had felt the force of him, the quiet, smooth power of his personality, his tuthlessness, his complete conviction of his superiority over all men. _ She remembered that there had even been a good natured tolerance i in his manner when = had spoken of Nevins, and she knew Nevins was him- self a strong, rugged character. As she stood in the room of the cabin’ now, her thoughts went to last night, when she had seen him sitting on the edge of the table which was at as instant close to her. A great fear of him welled up in her, short- ening her breath, bringing a queer con- striction into her throat, and in that in- stant she decided she would rather die by. Naylor’s gun than be imprisoned in the cabin to wait until Travis came. She wouldn’t face him! One of the windows of the reom in which she stood was open. While watching Nay- jor she had discovered that at frequent intervals he passed the window. Often he stood just in front of it for a few minutes, shading his hands as he peered westward. She felt that Naylor was momentarily ex- pecting Travis to appear. Naylor was im- patient. Two or three times she had heard him curse. Edna went to a cast iron stove that stood in a corner of the room and took up the short, heavy iron poker she found there. Then she stole to the wall near the window and waited. — Twice as she stood beside the window her. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY with the poker upraised Naylor passed just But the — beyond reach of the implement. third time he passed he came close to the window, and Edna leaned out and struck . with all her force. _ She felt that she had not struck accurate- ly, for the poker glanced from Naylor’s head and struck one of his shouldrers. It flew out of her grasp, but she saw Naylor go down, and she was certain she had stunned him. So she climbed through the window and dropped beside him, intending to run to his horse, mount it and do her best to reach the Circle Dot in spite of the riders Travis had thrown out to intercept her. She stepped over Naylor. As she did so, one of his hands flashed out and grasped her right ankle, throwing her off balance. She fell upon an arm and shoulder, kicked herself free and scrambled to her feet as Naylor rose and threw himself at her. Nay- lor slipped as he lunged, for his shoulder struck her in the back, throwing her head- long against the wall of the cabin. There was. a terrific roaring in her ears. _A vast darkness, strangely dotted with lit- tle splotches of light, seemed to surround Then came an interval in which she — heard nothing, saw nothing. CHAPTER XXII. A SECRET WOUND. T seemed to Edna that she was floating upward out of a black pit when she again discerned the little splotches of light. The roaring in her ears had dimin- ished, although there had been one great crash which still seemed to reverberate like a sreat gun bemg fired at a distance. could not definitely fix the time when the great gun had boomed; as to whether it had sounded before the splotches of light appeared or afterward. When she opened her eyes to see day- light around her, she was still trying to determine the moment of the great crash, and not for several seconds did she become aware that a man’s face was in her vision, and that the man’s face was Nevins’s. She was lying comfortably; she felt a pillow under her head. And after a time Lt She © she was in doubt — comicbooks-co im