Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 14, 1928 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

~ 254 vanishing like shadows from the circle of light to the somber darkness before the mizzenmast. Old Skipper Bartlett and the girl saw two sharp flashes of light, heard the deafening reports, followed by the simultaneous clatter of a heavy body and a dropped gun somewhere forward near the companionway. A few moments of. quiet; Swope was in the dark, fumbling about. Then he came prowling aft into the light until he saw the old man and the girl. GIS 2 a gpl BOE aD Og te “HAR AGAIN! OM BRASS, with narrow shoul- ders hunched as if expecting a blow from some unseen enemy aloft in the shrouds, paced from fore- castle to poop. In one hand he held his pistol, in the other a spyglass. With this latter he periodically squinted at the moonlit water, at the row of lights on shore, at the ships riding at anchor all about him, like huge blackbirds sleeping. They should have been gone long ago; that was Tom Brass’s deeply rooted conviction. Something might happen. Swope had started a desper- ately dangerous game in the first place, a game that could only end with the whole gang of them swinging on the gallows. And this last phase of it— sending that girl ashore for more gold —was sheer lunacy. Who could tell what was happening at this very moment? How could they be sure she had not recruited an army of gunmen to hound them to their death? Who could tell but that they might have taken to rowboats and stood out for the bay to wait until their victims attempted to sail for the Sacramento? The whole country would be up in arms—if the girl told her story. At least that was Tom Brass’s firm belief. He had done nothing as yet of his eyes. pierce the denser splotches of shadow ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, which would arouse any very sericus interest on the part of the gold-crazed Argonauts of San Francisco. Never- theless, he suffered the torture of the guilty man who magnifies his deed, so that it seems the whole world must be eager for his blood. Tt was during this mental agony that. Tom Brass, reaching the forecastle again, looked down over the rail. He saw the whaleboat in which the girl had come from shore. And he saw something else: It was a small skiff, that had certain- ly not been there when Swope and he and their two companions had first come aboard. A’ peculiar change came over the lanky scarecrow, standing up there on the forecastle deck. A scarecrow sure- ly enough—but one which was caught by a slight puff of wind. A man giving one shudder like a scarecrow respond- ing to a puff, that was the picture. Then abruptly he whirled around with the dreadful assurance that an en- emy was up there in the shrouds, ready to pounce upon him like a python wait- ing on a tree limb. He looked aloft, scanning the pursed sails and rigging in one terrified sweep Then he tried vainly to on deck: the deck house, the hatchways, the caboose, the grating, the pumps, the masts. If he could only get to Swope and his companions without calling out. He did not dare to raise his voice. In fact it is to be doubted whether or not he could have emitted more than a tremu- lous howl. Nor did he dare to pass so much as the foremast in an attempt to get to the companionway. He merely stood there, a formless scarecrow, a bunch of old clothes held up by a stake, which in this case was the shaking skeleton of a man.- He was congealed with fear, gripped with the fear of death, which is worse than death itself. He was incapable of making a step toward his companions, COMEE DOOKS (EO)