Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

\ A After the preliminary trial for bond, in which he had nothing to fear, he would be ~ a free man again. After his company had left, Danny set- - tled himself to look over the evening paper, but his eyes refused to follow the printed lines. Casting the paper aside, he threw himself, fully dressed, on the cot and courted slumber. But there again his mind was a whirlpool of many emotions, and his aching, bandaged face promised little sleep for the night. Ten-thirty—Eleven. Then, as he renounced all hope of slumber, he found himself drifting, sinking into a bliss- ful unconsciousness. © Suddenly he was wide awake. How long he had slept he did not know; possibly an hour. At first he had difficulty in remem- bering where he was. The moonlight filter- ing through the iron shackled window illu- minated the gray walls with a ghastly radi- ance. The traffic on the streets had ceased; everything was quiet. Why had he woke so suddenly and completely? He was per- fectly at ease in mind and body. Then he heard voices—low, restrained voices. Rising, he went to the window, and what he saw was enough to strike a chill into his heart. The jailyard was filled with grim, silent men, some. of them masked. By. straining his ears Danny could make out the masked leader’s ulti- matum to Sam Morgan: “Blood or no blood, we'll have him. You’ve just one minute more to fork over the keys.” Morgan tried to Teason, to plead with them for the law to take its course. He had made the mistake, however, of coming outside to argue. Without warning he was seized by two men and the keys to the jail wrenched from him. The next instant six men entered the jail and overpowered and manacled the prisoner. “ Better not follow us,” the leader ad- vised Morgan. ‘We mean business and every man I have will shoot.” The jailer saw them off and ran to call the sheriff. Sheriff Bush was already on the way with the chief of police. They arrived together. _“* Which way did they go?” asked. Has- kett. 12 A ry) ry itj Ian SLIGHT e SERVICE. 689 “North, chief—up the street.” Morgan gave his information in gasps. ‘‘ Headed for the Kelley SpringS, I think.” “How many? Who was the leader?” asked the sheriff. “Alf Riggs, I think—him or’ Bernard Colston. He was masked. There was four or five hundred of them. Held me and took my keys—” “Alf Riggs—and four or five hundred,” pondered the sheriff aloud. He was visibly impressed. ‘““They mean business,” volunteered Morgan. “If they’re interfered with, somebody—several will be killed to-night.” “ They’d probably kill him anyway if they saw we were going to get him,” said Haskett. “I couldn’t get over fifteen men together, and I’d hate to send any of them to their death.” ‘““Same_ here,” answered. the sheriff. ‘ Better one man dead, I say, than a whole park full. Especially when you know they ¥ kill the prisoner before we get him, anyway.” ‘What are you going to do about it?” | ¢‘ Give ’em a little time,” said the sheriff —to which the chief nodded assent. ‘We'll send some scouting parties out to the cave and the woods back of the ceme- tery. That'll take an hour. We'll have done our duty then in the search. “But they went to the Kelley Springs,” harped the excited jailer. “Sh,” hissed sheriff and chief together. ‘‘ Don’t you see?” Bush deplored the necessity of such a de- ception, but it was necessary for the benefit of his constituency that he make an ostensi- ble effort to prevent the lynching. It would be folly to send.some of his men to their ‘death, to say nothing of incurring the po- litical enmity of the whole Riggs’s conniec- tion. He concluded, however, that it might be_diplomatic to arrive on the scene just after the nefarious work was done. An hour would give plenty of time. ‘Explore the cave and the cemetery woods and meet me here in forty minutes, sharp,” he commanded. ‘“ Then we'll all get together and bear down on Kelley Springs like all hell turned loose. What’s wrong with that?” Origina DOO = Lr i I \ ("=F | }- i ] » |