Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

* owt & ——_ a EVERY MINUTE COUNTS. - he told her some of the truth, judicious- ly, she would help him to escape. In so many ways, Richard was just a trustful, innocent boy. “Well, it isn’t,’ Gwen laughed. * You don’t feel so erratic and unusu- al this morning, do-you?”’ “é No.”’ “Then hurry up and finish your breakfast, because I think I want you to take a ride with me—we'll talk awhile in the garden first,” the lady submitted, and rose and moved beauti- fully to the tall windows. “Ride?” Richard said hastily, as visions of endless, time-consuming miles arose. “I can’t ride.” “You used to. You told me so.” “I know, but I can’t any more, [— I had a fall and it busted my nerve completely. I’m scared to death of a horse now.” Gwen laughed, musically, absently. “ Never mind. We'll find something else to take us out of sight for awhile, Dicky.” “Well, Gwen,” said Richard’s low and guarded voice, ‘ before we do any getting out of sight, there’s something important I want to talk about. Will you come over here and sit down again for a moment?” He had tried to make the tone per- suasive ; but in her own fashion and not for the first time, Mrs. Bragg was sweetly ignoring him. She leaned for- ward, scanning the sunny outdoors 1n- tently. Now she turned back with a contented little smile. “T’ll put on heavier slippers, I think,” she submitted. “ It looks rather damp out there.” ec But—”’ “ T’ll be down again in five minutes,” said Mrs. Bragg, and patted his ad- mired head in passing. Very well! They’d talk in the gar- den, then; they’d talk fast and to the point—or Richard would. Fondly and foolishly enough, he fancied once more that he could see at least the beginning of the path to freedom. He’d master - "_ oe eek a z we eng tens Sa ee PS Ae LITT 5 9 Ne Des hi AES ae a ee i eee ie ee rs 5 PSN hie ot PONG ee st. Pe ae PO AS a ee oie oe eee hee re te oS ae that absurd fright; if need be, he would make love to the lady! But before he had finished, he’d have her helping him to escape—or die. Mr. Melton reached for another piece of bacon; it was good bacon; and if Pierre himself made these dinky little biscuits, three hundred dollars a month was a downright swindle on Brage’s part. Gwen was waiting for him at the windows which gave upon the side veranda. She slipped an arm through Rich- ard’s, and this time he neither shrank nor protested, he may indeed have squeezed this arm a bit with his own. She looked up quite adoringly at Rich- ard as she led him into the long, old- fashioned. garden. | Darned pretty place it was, too, Rich- ard observed, and very nicely devised for his immediate purposes. There were overgrown side paths which led, appar- ently, to remote rustic benches; down at the far end there was an arbor quite buried in early roses. That arbor was the spot if he could get her there! Mrs. Bragg seemed quite in harmony. Very softly, in her light, fine soprano, she sang a little song as she clung to Richard and kept step with him, a song about love and roses and June! Even in the tension of the moment, with ev- ery minute possibly counting off a pros- perous year from his future, Richard could not help chuckling. To look at Gwen, you see, one might have thought her a sixteen-year-old in the throes of a first love by the way she sang, the way she looked up at him, all that. And that smile of hers— “Oh!” Gwen gasped suddenly, and put a conspicuous twelve inches between them in something less than one second ! Colonel Bragg said nothing at all. He, as it happened, had been sitting there in the rose-buried arbor all the time, Richard understood with a shock. Doubtless he had been watching them; at any rate, he was watching them now! From his eye, the apologetic quality ‘s r a a “ > en ee ee ST IS (oe) 1 +a AD = Cc. ee —_