Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

A494 “ Go right in!’, Madden exclaimed. And laying hand on the other’s shoulder, he forced him ahead. The door closed after the pair. Before the doorway there re- mained, however, the pair of young engi- neers, rifles in hands, whose threatening bearing and glistening gun-barrels were ap- parent even in the patchy light dropping through the boughs. . At a distance of about ten feet off the crowd of people halted, staring eagerly at the jail building, showing their white teeth as they carried on low talk in Spanish, and awaiting with impatience the return out- side of Madden and Lucerio, that they might flood them with questions. Weir remained to see no more, for the increasing crowd pushed out farther and farther on the flanks, a circumstance that would eventually result in- his discovery. So slipping to the rear of the jail and keep- ing well in the shadows, he gained the fence. This he leaped, and, lighting a ciga- rette, examined his pistol, then proceeded to smoke calmly until Madden arrived. “Hurry! Slip away!” the latter said. “They wondered what the devil I dodged back here for, and are as curious as cats.” The two men glided away, keeping well in the shadows until they gained the side street, and then passed to the main thor- oughfare. ‘What if Sorenson and Vorse are some- where in that crowd?” Madden asked. “ They’re likely to be, expecting your ar- rest.” ‘Then we'll have to wait till they leave it. But I don’t believe they’re there. They ‘won’t want to show their hands even by being on the scene.” “Probably they’ve found out Gordon is dead.” “Probably. But, on the other side, they suppose now that the dam has been de- stroyed and that I’m locked up,” Weir said. ‘Still, I guess that if they’ve learned Pol- lock and Martinez and I were at Gordon’s all the afternoon, and he committed sui- cide, they'll be worrying some, just the same.’”’ a . Madden glanced at his companion. ‘“‘Y don’t believe we'll bring Vorse in— alive,” he said. -_ ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. _ ‘* That’s the way I want him, and Soren- son,-too. I want to see them go up for life, . but if not that, then be hanged. But a life term for both, along with Burkhardt, is my choice. I want them to suffer as my fa- ther suffered. Only worse. Dying’s too easy for them. Let them have hell here for a while before they get it on the other side. Let the iron bars and stone walls kill them. I hope they live for twenty years to gnaw out their hearts every day and every night behind steel doors. That would half pay what they owe. “But if they finish in prison, knowing there’s no hope, knowing I’ve put them there for what they did to my father and Jim Dent, knowing that all the money and cattle they stole has slippéd through their fingers, that they’ve lost all they gained and more, that their curses and crimes are crushing their own heads, why, that will help. ‘‘ And Sorenson — Sorenson there every day, knowing his son lies a helpless crip- ple, without the money that has been piled up for him! I couldn’t invent a worse hell for him. And that’s the hell he’s going to have!” | Though a man not easy to move, Mad- den, at Weir’s cold, implacable expression of hatred, shivered slightly.; Sorenson and his accomplices would be lucky: indeed if they died by the rope. CHAPTER XXIX., VORSE. CROSS the main street the two men walked, wearing ‘their hats low, and making no answer to shouted questions of those hurrying to the court-house yard. Already the grounds about the court-house and the street in front were jammed with eager, excited Mexicans, thrilled with an expectation of something to happen, though they knew not exactly what. ‘“ The mur- derer, the killer—they have taken the kill- er!” was the constant statement tossed from mouth to mouth. “ But not the killer they think,” Mad- den said in a low aside to Weir as they moved ahead on their errand. of! DOOKS > (C(O) (C(O) mM