Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

934 Pierre, too—he’s dead!” As he spoke Tad Raynor glanced at the girl admiringly. “The biggest and worst man that ever sailed the sea or trod the snows, dad, was killed by the smallest and prettiest and best woman on earth!” That evening in the Raynor home the colonel heard the detailed story. He saw with his own eyes enough clear yellow gold to make them all independent for ten life- times. When the tale was done Tad rose and slipped his arms about Barbara. She raised her face to his and their lips met. The colonel rose to his feet and blessed them heartily. “East and West are joined!” he smiled sagely. ‘“ You both are right lucky! Barb, your name is already famous, and you’ve lived up to it. ‘“T never saw a man with a better son than mine. I'll never see one with a bet- ter daughter. I’m as happy as you both are—where are you going to live?” THE U ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘Out here!” Barbara Howland said in- stantly. ‘Out here where I can find my father’s remains and give to them the burial they deserve. Here in this new land where all things have come to me; here is where we shall live.” Tad nodded happily. (ll try to carry on for you. married to-morrow, too!”’ “Yes, to-morrow,” Barb said _ shyly, ‘and just as soon as we can we are Start- ing East—Tad is such a baby, daddy! He can’t wait to see the Hudson and ride on the steamboats that run to Albany—but he’ll be frightfully sick of these stuffy trains before we get there!” Outside a new San Francisco muttered its heterogeneous sounds like groans from the growing pains of a baby behemoth. In the room Barbara Howland slipped into her lover’s arms and looked upward into his eyes as he kissed her. Thus grew bliss and future promise from an evil panorama. END “You bet, dad! We're getting BABY | DID not know what rapture was, Until I saw him smile, A little smile, so small, so fleet, So full of winning guile— But all of earth’s repletest joy Was in that tiny smile. I did not know what torture was, Until I heard him cry— An awful cry that smote my heart And made my lips go dry. For all of earth’s intensest pain Was in that little cry. I did not know what life could be Until his life became A part of me, the whole of me, Until we were the same. For in him all my dearest dreams Reality became. Beatrice Ashton Vandegrift. GEomichooks (EO)