The Argosy, December 1905 — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

138 ee | dunno. Sade says her Uncle Jase is goin’ ter kill him.” “Hush! You shouldn't repeat such things. Sade is a wicked little girl. She doesn’t know what she is talking about.” “ Well, she says she does! ” responded Billy, shaking his head solemnly. “She Says he’s goin’ ter be killed if he stays here. An’ she wanted me to give him a letter.” “A letter? Who from—what for?” demanded Belle, quite disturbed. “{—I dunno,” stammered Billy, who always grew incoherent when anybody else became the least excited. “ I—1I didn’t do it, Miss Belle—ndeed I didn’t! ” “Didn’t do what?” “Give him the letter. I wouldn’t. She tol’ me to leave it with his supper at the tower door.” “Was it this evening?” “"Yaas ’m.” Belle went in and closed the door then. But she was much disturbed. She believed now that she knew why Sade had been in town—and, further, why she had come across lots from the direc- tion of the signal tower. “She delivered the letter herself,” thought the captain’s daughter. “ Now, what was it—a lure to get Mr. Cromp- ton in the power of those bad men, or a warning? I wish [ had been able to get more out of Sade before father came into the kitchen to-night. “Oh, these Howards! They are bad —bad ’way through! And father seemed angry with this Mr. Crompton, too, when I spoke of him the other day. He says, as bad as some of the Howards are, they always ‘ hang together’ ” She shook her head sadly, mounting to her room. “If things keep on, some of the Howards may surely hang to- gether!” was her added thought. She dared not discuss the matter with her father; it seemed useless to .sound "Tilda, Armet. Belle Howard slept but little that night. It was before their early breakfast that she saw Silly Billy dodging about the back fence and peering up at her windows. His appearance gave the girl a shock from which she was some min- utes in recovering; she knew he was THE ARGOSY. waiting to get speech with her without attracting Captain Payne’s observation. Hurriedly dressing, she went down into the yard, where, well away from the house, she called softly to the boy. “ Billy, what is the matter? Do you want to see me?” “Oh, yaas ’m,” gasped Silly Billy, his face appearing red and tear-streaked, like a beclouded moon, over the top of - the fence. “I’se feared to come to the house, Miss Belle.” “ What’s the matter? What has hap- pened, Billy?” she asked, frightened, she knew not why. “Tt’s Mr. Crompton,” breathed the excited Billy. “He ain’t come home. Mother sent me over to the tower. He ain’t there.” “ What—what——- Don’t the man there know anything about him?” “Nom. He left same’s us’al at mid- night. He ain’t never got to our house,” declared Silly Billy, and broke into such wild sobs that he lost his precarious footing on the fence outside and dis- appeared with an involuntary grunt. But Belle was so troubled by his in- formation that she failed to see any- thing ridiculous in either his mishap or in his bobbing up again in a moment like a very lugubrious jack-in-the-box. “You must tell me all about it—all you know,” she said earnestly. CHAPTER XVIII. A RATHER BLIND TRAIL. But Billy could really tell her very little—that is, little of importance; al- though he talked volubly enough of his mother’s fright when Dan was found not to be at home in the morning, and how he had run over to ask Markell about the missing signalman, and what Markell had said. Markell had telegraphed to Cold- spring station (this was early, before Bobbett came on duty) and Billy had heard him discuss Crompton’s disap- pearance with the conductor of a freight that was at. the moment side-tracked, waiting for the passing. of some more important train. — Billy had heard something about a COMmiclbooks (C@