Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

< eaevejed the figure of the young man who stood with such a nervous intensity upon its threshold. “Michael Lebombard?” said Wilbur. Michael arose from his chair. “Out, nv siew.” Wilbur stood aside and Marcia came in. Her eyes were hot and brilliant as southern stars. Her color was high. She did not breathe evenly. ““You have shepherd dogs?” she said. . Lebombard looked his fill at the pair con- fronting him. They were a type that he was well familiar with in his character of guide in the great northern woods. But there they had always been transplanted. He saw them now for the first time in their own environment. He sensed their breed- ing, their wealth, and their great strain; a strain curiously allied with the one he was himself undergoing. “ Mademoiselle, she desires to see my dogs?” Marcia looked steadily at her brother: “Tt is the sole reason why I am here to- night,” she said. Three things Michael Lebombard at once decided. One was that the exquisite young girl with her unnatural colormg and star- tling eyes lied. ‘The second was that the young man with the intense, drawn expres- sion upon his weakly handsome face was. drunk. The third was that each was stand- ing upon the perilous brink of some emo- tional crisis in their lives. One cannot arrive at the age of sixty- two without having acquired a deep sym- pathy or a vast intolerance for the tragedies of youth. And there was no intolerance in ~ Lebombard’s heart. In the depths of his sreat north woods he had drunk deeply from the well of philosophy that offers re- freshing solace to the souls of solitary men. He had plumbed the depths of many hu- man frailties and, to a measure, had come to understand their cure. “Tf mademoiselle,’ he said, “ will come this way?” He crossed to a second door that was in the rear of the log cabin and placed his hand upon the latch: From behind it came two low, short barks. One sensed the presence of a smile beneath Michael’s scrag- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. gly, a ge mustaches; a smile of pride and deep pleasure. ‘* Vidinette,” he said, “and Jacques.” He offered the two names as an identity to the barks. The smile beneath his great mu- staches deepened and showed faint creases beyond their shadowing edge as he added, with an air of pronouncing something tre- mendously important: “ North Star—he does not bark.” | - The blood raced through Marcia like white fire. Would this tedious old fool, she wondered, never be done. Her thoughts were in a turmoil that was vague beyond endurance. Her anger raged to a point where it threatened to burst beyond the controls of breeding. - Her nails bit deeply into the palms of ‘cs hands as she watched the intolerable slowness of Lebombard’s movements. It would seem that the raising of the latch was a ceremony; one of high state. She had small patience at the moment with show. manship. At last it was done. The latch was free of its hasp. Michael Lebombard drew the door in- wards with a flourish of his free arm and, so it seemed, of his whole body. He faced, for an instant, the pale obscurity that lay outside. : “ Attention!” he said. Then he bowed. Marcia gave an impatient nod to Wilbur. They passed outside. An inclosure had been built that extended to a wall about eight feet in height. Beyond, at some distance, was a painted drop of timbered hills swathed in snow. Standing erect against the background of the wall, motionless as carved statues, evenly balanced on ali four feet, ears and head up, were two magnificent specimens of the shepherd dog, frequently, but care- lessly, termed the police dog. They were about eight months eld; thee one a male, reddish brown in color; the other a fe- male, white with brindle patches. They were twin objects of infinite beauty and great pride. __“Vidinette,”” “ and Jacques’ -Marcia looked fixedly in their. direction- said Lebombard _ softly, Her eyes registered the fact that they were OO comicbooks.c