Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

LORETTA ‘Of course you understand that I will not allow it.” ‘What have you got to say about it?” Chilton laughed. ‘The real murderer will be found sooner or later,” Rivers said hotly. ‘“ That is to say—unless some silly ass like you—”’ ‘Dash it all I’m doing this for my own fun—” ‘A lie. With my apologies.” — “Tf you ball up my game,” Chilton said in a deadly tone that made his friend shiv- er, “‘and let your wife and daughter go through the tortures of a murder trial, [ll come back and commit a real crime!”’ The other retorted with scorn: ‘“ You actually are crazy enough to think I’ll per- mit you to do this? I'll go straight to the police and do all in my power to prove that another man killed Morduant.” “That is the most sensible—the only sensible remark I’ve heard you make!” Chilton said. ‘If you can run down the actual murderer all right. I have nothing against him myself, but on the other hand I don’t want to be outlawed all my life.” “You are going merely to deflect the suspicion that has fallen upon me!” the other insisted. ‘“‘ Not for your sake, you old soak! for your family—and for myself.” *“T will accept on one condition.” “Your acceptance or refusal makes no difference. As soon as I finish this tamale I am going to the Arizona bad lands.” ‘““ My acceptance is based on this fact;”’ the other went on without faltering: “TI understand that rather than to stay in New York and bear the consequences of the sus- picion that has fallen on both of us, you will escape. By so doing you remove all sus- picion from me—all possible disgrace from my wife and daughter. And at the same time you take all the suspicion on yourself and magnify it a hundredfold. “Well and good! If you can stay out ‘of the reach of the law long enough I guar- antee to find the real criminal while you’re gone. I will have plenty of time. I will be free to pursue the game in my own way. { will enlist the best detectives. The real criminal, whoever he is, will be out in the open, so to speak, for he will consider that But BRODELL. 329 -all danger is removéd. With this under- standing I’ll let you go.” As Chilton had affirmed, his friend’s ac- ceptance of the plan would have nothing whatever to do with it. On Chilton’s plate there were only the husks of his. tamale. He got up, paid his check, shrugged him- self into his coat. It was a shrug having the usual significance of devil-may-care. “Do you want to ride down to Penn Sta- tion with me, Rivers?” he asked. CHAPTER IIl. EVEN BANDITS HAVE BAD LUCK. HORIZON of square mesas could be dimly distinguished against the first greenish gray light that precedes dawn. A flat plain of colorless gray swept westward, darkening toward the jagged black teeth of the Sierras. Beyond were the night sky and the morning star. A spur from the Santa Fe cut down southwestward through two of those mesas, crossing the desert in as straight a line for a hundred miles as a geometrician could construct between two points. You could not see the tracks at that darkest part of the night which is the half hour before dawn. But closer at hand there was a slight gleam of the iron reflecting some sort of light there in the desert which was hidden from the human eye. The obscurity, the silence was so obsolete, that it was like the interior of a cave. Yet in certain parts of the scene there seemed to be a deepening of the blackness. There appeared to be forms hovering about; you could see the giant cactus lifting up its prongs. This cactus—the sajuaro— looked. for all the world like terrified men standing here and there in the dark holding up their hands. At a certain point where that straight line of tracks swerved to an upgrade toward the Sierras, four horsemen met. To their eyes dilated from long hours of night trail- ing many more details of that scene were revealed: the jet black patches of mes- quite, the deep arroyos cut in the breast of the desert, the dry bowlder washes of gs) oO Gomichoo (S@)