Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

930 ily as they paused by mutual consent. “I wish you weren’t here!” She did not answer, but her grip upon his arm tightened, and they both continued their peering through the gloom of gray night at the rocks ahead. About the rocks the shadows were deep and impenetrable. “Tf some one is guarding the claim, that’s where he would wait,” Raynor re- marked. “I’m not going to let something I can’t even see keep me from finding out. Will you please wait here, Barb?” “T will not! Wherever you go, I’m go- ing—and that’s going to be through those rocks, too.” In determination she started forward alone, and Raynor caught her and thrust her behind him. His rifle flashed across his chest to be gripped, ready for action, in both hands. The girl laughed a little tensely, and followed as he began a slow and watchful march toward the rocks. Scarcely had they started when move- ment came. A shadow darker than the others separated itself, flashed in silhouette across the snow, and Raynor raised his rifle. Then a broken voice came to them, a voice of infinite pleading and staggering terror. From the rocks crept a bundled form, arms outstretched as an evidence of peace- ful intent, pace darting and slinking. The two stopped short, tense and ready as the figure approached them. “ Devil Mountain!” the bundled man wailed softly. ‘ Damn Devil Mountain!” His voice held no threat, but that of sup- plication; his words were a plea to them to take him from the little sapphire lake, and the cold, calm, quiet of the mountains among which it lay. Then they saw that he was an Indian. ‘No need to fear this poor devil,” Ray- nor whispered to the girl. Then, after a brief second’s thought: ‘ Let’s get him back a little and make him talk. If want to know what he means by this ‘ Devil Mountain.’ ” On the edge of the little lake they huddled among the rocks, the Indian re- peatedly casting backward glances in the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. direction of the pass to the claim. In his broken English, punctuated by lapses of coherence through sheer agony of fear, Ray- nor drew from the man his story. It was a pitiable one. He told of taking two men who had run away from a ship at Nome to his shack and keeping them there until the snows came. He spoke of maps they had for the finding of this very spot, and of their pay- ment tc him for guiding them across the snows. Then he told of the killing of the one named Gatchell by the one called Jerk, and of the appearance of a man he called a devil. Graphically, his eyes dilated with terror, he told of the death of Jerk Rann at the hands of the wolf pack, and the delight of the mad giant French Pierre at his own handiwork. Through it all Raynor and the girl lis- tened in spellbound attention. The story of the native made everything clear to them, and identified, to their amazement, the body they had found upon the limb. ‘At best,” Raynor said solemnly, “ this Jerk Rann could have paid no greater price for his evil.” “Tt is the way of such as he,” Barbara Howland said frankly. ‘“‘ There seems to be a poetic god in this country; it is he whose influence we have felt all along, Tad.” Then the native went on, told of the way the mad giant had pressed him into service with a native who had guided him, and how the three had fought their way tu this Devil Mountain where the wind whispered in the rocks and spoke never of good. The second native, he said, had been killed because he tried to run away, mad giant had struck him on the head with his mighty fist, and as the Indian lay prone upon the snow, had trampled upon him until breath came no longer, and the lone wolf howled understanding from the reaches of frost. And now, said the Indian, he was alone with the mad giant, French Pierre. Many months had passed, he said, and he had given up hope of getting away. The mad giant kept all the rifles and the ammuni- - <S (E(0) .OO mie The | (E(0)