Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 205: what you’re looking at

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

ld service, married James Arnold, of Dorches- ter, to the Senorita Esmeralda de Ulloa— Jim will always call her Nee-Nah. King Kelly was best man at the wedding, and Don Castro gave the bride away, and nearly tugged his mustache out by the roots in the excitement of his duties. At the earnest entreaties of his friends— it was his daughter’s plea that fetched him —the little don consented to go with them to the States. cause of his son-in-law’s promise. that he would return south and settle in Peru. Fast steamers and faster locomotives hur- ried the members of the party on toward the last big-scene in the drama for Bob and Katherine Jones. “It’s nearly a year now, Bob—how do you think he will look? He won’t have forgotten his mother, anyway! Oh, isn’t there any way to get there faster?” On this theme Kate’s mother-heart played a thousand variations, ‘Nearly a year! It was mid-August when Bobby Jones had been taken from his father’s garden in Detroit. It was early June when Bob Jones, Sr.; his wife, Jim Arnold, and one other—caution dictated that the party should be small—crouched in an evergreen thicket! under tall pine- trees on the Isle au Haut, and turned anx- ious eyes toward an old stone house, half- hidden by trees, some hundreds of yards away. Grimshaw’s note had advised Jones to be circumspect. He had followed the advice. Jaqui was the fourth member of the party. Misty morning turned into clear and pleasant day. Along the woodland path from the old house strolled a man and a boy. The man was dark and shifty-eyed, and wore gold rings in his ear-lobes. The boy was as full of spring and mischief as the red Irish terrier that leaped beside him. Kate Jones was first to see them coming; and she began to tremble so that her big husband gathered her in his arms and sup- ported her. “ He’s all right, little girl, all right! Just five Qinutes more,” he whispered. Arnold nudged the Paititian, who was ‘dressed for the occasion in the next-to-na- ture garb of his native tropics. LAND OF THE SHADOW PEOPLE. He was the more willing be-_ 487 ‘“‘ Here they come, Jakey! And look out that the dog doesn’t spoil it.” : Jaqui slipped away among the trees. Be- fore he had gone five yards the three pairs of watching eyes behind him could not distinguish him from the foliage among. whith he moved. “Oh, Bob! wrong!” Something did go wrong, very wrong; but it wasn’t Bobby Jones who suffered If something should go from it. An alder thicket stood beside the path. The terrier, trotting ahead, passed it. The man and boy were nearly abreast of it, when the dog turned back, stopped with one foot lifted, bristled, snarled, and leaped at the alders. Spanish Luis was “ quick to act.” With a curse he flung himself sidewise, clutching inside his coat. A lithe green figure, from which the terrier fled yelping, was almost as quick. Luiz never drew the pistol for which his hand had dived. But Be did reach his sailor’s knife. | “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!” At sound of that sweet, woman’s voice, the boy, who had stood, startled, but too brave to run, leaped like a galvanized thing. “It’s mother! Come on, Mike!”’ A small figure on feet that flew raced down the path to the waiting haven of mother-arms. “ Bobby!’ Thank God!” Two strong bodies were interpdsed now to shield the lad from any possible mischief by Spanish Luiz. . But Luiz was done with mischief. He lay dead in the grass beside the path, and Jaqui lay beside him. The Paititign lived long enough to kiss Arnold’s hand, and then | he, too, went into the big shadow. Outside of the fact that Luiz had taught him a few gingery Spafiish cuss-words, Bobby was found to be very much O. K. “But, mother, I thinked you an’ daddy jus’ never would come! Ain’t this Mike a beaut, though? He’s mine.” Once more the Joneses are living peace- fully in their Detroit home. Jones, Jr.— not always peacefully—is going to school. Oh, mummy! Mummy! Original fr ) STATE JN THE OH 10 NGORMC SOOLKS. COM