Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

PRIDE OF TYSON. rf Yes.” “T told you he would send you away. Did he frighten you?” “ Frighten me?” She smiled. ‘The big man will deny that you frightened 1m.” “'You’ve a poisonous tongue,” he an- swered angrily. Then he mastered his irri- tation and extended his hand again. “T’m in a hurry,” he said. ‘It’s late, Rona, and I have a long distance to walk.” She took his hand and retained it in a steady clasp. “I don’t’ want you to go,” she asserted. ‘JT will tell Padre Miguel that, and perhaps he will let yeu stay.” “He has nothing at all to do with my going,” said Tyson in a louder voice. “Yet you are going, senor.” ‘Why should I stay?” “Because you like me.” “You will marry Kennedy and be hanoy ever after; so busy plaguing him that you'll forget me, eh?”’ “T shall not marry him,” she said earnestly, “if that is sending you away.” He turned to face her squarely, and he searched her as a strong light plumbs the darkness, but he could not read a thing within her. “You have promised him,” he said. “A promise is a word, and a word -is a breath.”” She inhaled slowly. “So, I take _ back the promise with the breath. Is it not true?” “Padre Miguel will have another opin- ' jon,” smiled Tyson, “and so will poor Kennedy. ” “* However,” she insisted, “ T will not let either of them hurt you.” “ Dear God!’’ burst out the man. “ Do you dream that I’m running away because I fear an old priest and a bull-throated gambler?” “Of course,” answered Rona Carnahan, “they cannot hear you now. I am glad of that.” . It needs a rare man to bear the imputa- tion of cowardice from the lips of any woman; and Tyson was worried. For the _ first time he regarded Rona seriously, be- cause for the first time she had seriously disturbed him. “She had passed into sudden Digitized by Go ogle 399 change as the moon dips behind a cloud and leaves the skies dark with midnight. She sat with an elbow on her knee, and her chin resting on a clenched fist, and her eyes probing a gloomy distance—like a feminine “ Thinker.” “What shall I do,” ‘asked Tyson, “ to prove that I’m not afraid of them?” _ She did not answer. ~ “Yet I haven’t time to waste on the padre and the gambler,” he concluded, rising, “so it’s good-by, Rona.” SHe paid no heed to his extended arm, and Tyson frowned. “¢ Good-by,” he repeated. leave you in anger, Rona.” “Tm ay to “You will come back,” she said, and was silent again. He stared after her, but found an expres- sion which he could not decipher. Perhaps there is nothing that makes a man so un- comfortable as silence in a woman; for her natural weapons are grace of body and music of voice and the charm of small, speaking ways; but when she is silent the deadly weapon of thought takes the place of all these. It is puzzling, as a boxer i is puzzling who keeps his right hand extended instead of the left. It is difficult to explain the pecu- liar and insinuating power of silence; per- haps it is that we endow the silent one with strength from our own imaginings. At any rate, it became extremely difficult for Tyson to meet the solemn eyes of Rona. It was as if the girl were judging him, and reading his values with a pitiless accuracy. It was not long—that pause—but while it lasted Tyson forgot the lessening light, and the swift trees, and the blue hills on either side, and he saw only the large, dark, thoughtful eyes of the girl. There was no place for words. What meaning could words have to her? He turned on his heel and strode down the valley. The atmosphere of thoughtful- ness which she had established stayed with — him. He was picturing her in a thousand attitudes, critically, and remembering that in none of them had she been beautiful. Yet the impression she gave was that of beauty; he tasted the thought of it, and being a connoisseur, he knew; it was like Ori ee yap ASO IN 6)(0)6) ED) a) SS CO