Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

HAWAIIAN HEELS. Again her hand went to his forearm and she leaned close to him. “ Don't - you suppose I know who he is, Slum?” she whispered. “I knew it the first moment I saw him. But you need not fear me.” Slum shrugged his shoulders. “ Any- way,” he admitted, “reckon you'd rather get the blood money for ‘im alive than dead.” * Oh, Slum!’ The reproof in her tone made him feel instantly mean and _ apologetic. “ Pardon me, ma’am. Reckon I’m a bit ruffled. Lost my bearin’s kinda, what with these slinkin’ stick-ups and au. “ Come along then and help me. We must get him out of here. It’s not far to my cabin. I can lock him in there and nobody can get him.” Together then, the stumpy little man and the slender girl lifted the lanky, inert Lance and carried him out of the steerage, through the galley, through the saloon, along the passage and into the owner’s cabin. They laid him on the bed. Rova latched the door, and immediately busied herself about the bed. She pulled down the covers and placed Lance between the sheets, re- moved his boots, opened his shirt and listened to the beating of his heart, scanned his closed eyes, went into the bathroom and searched in the medicine closet, coming back with a bottle of witch-hazel and a phial of iodine, with which she again cleansed the wound. She found some surgical gauze and binding tape and dressed it neatly. Slum stood at the foot of the bed awkwardly, embarrassed, and yet being captivated and subjugated against his will moment by moment. She was just a “ skirt,”’ and a young foolish-looking one at that, but she went about this business like an old hand. “You're sure good medicine,” he mumbled. She threw an angelic smile in his direction. “ Thanks, Slum.” —— - _~ . S = J, wr eee ae ee 569 For the first time the stricken man moved his arms of his own will, and turned over without assistance. As he did so, a revolver, a good mannish six- shooter, oozed out of his hip pocket and lay out on the white sheet. Rova picked it up and looked at it and then laid it aside on the dresser. |“ That’s funny,” said Slum. * What’s funny?” asked Rova. “ The way that gun fell outa Lance’s pocket. Just the way that toy pistol o’ hisn fell out the night of the murder in the Cross-Eyed Duck. I saw that. He never met none o’ them shootin’ dames. -Never knew ’em from a hole in the wall. - “ Never would have gone to no beer saloon if it hadn’t ’a’ been for me. Just came there to help me. Got a heart as big as the Rocky Mountains, Lance has. Then his gun popped out on the floor thataway jest like thisn did right now. : “It hopped right down under the hand of that gin-soaked dame where she was.sprawlin’ around like a taran- tula. She ups and grabs it and plugs everybody she could see with it. That’s how it happened, so help me God, be- lieve me, Miss Hollins.”’ Rova looked at Slum with misty eyes. She came toward him again and took his hands. ‘“ You’re just a darl- ing,’ she said irrelevantly. This rendered him tongue-tied for the moment. At length he stammered: “Don’t y’ b-believe me?” “Of course!” she exclaimed. “I knew it all the time.” “That’s funny,” said he. “ How come you know it?” She put her hand on her heart and sighed. “ Here,” she explained. “ Don’t you suppose any one would know it must be something like that, just to look at Lance Houston.” They were standing at the foot of the bed and at opposite sides while this was going on, and they turned at the same time to look down on what they supposed to be the unconscious form of cGomicbooks.com en ial anol ~z,* * ~ =f a ~2