The Argosy, January 1907 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

198 “Yes, you see it’s written on the stone here, and must be a memorandum of something so important that he doesn’t dare to trust its whereabouts to his memory alone. It’s not exactly a cipher, for it is all written out so clearly, but it’s just as good.” “What does it mean?” Billy asked, after studying the stone for a time in silence. But I was forced to confess that its meaning was more than I could fathom. “We must make a copy of this to take with us,” I suggested; “then we can study it at our leisure.” We had no pencil, but we scratched the inscription rudely with a knife-point on my knapsack. “Ts it all down?” Billy asked. “Ves,” I answered; “let’s get out of the place now.” ‘Just wait a minute,” said Billy. Thereupon he rubbed his cap over the stone, and removed the writing. “Now,” he explained, “if José hap- pens to become forgetful, this little geography won’t help him much.” “Now,” I said, when we were again outside, ‘‘ we must see if we can’t find some place near by where we can com- fortably study that cipher, and keep a sharp lookout at the same time for José.” We wandered some distance from the hut, seeking a suitable hiding-place, and at last came on a nook in the west wall of the canon, where we were hardly visible, though we had a clear view of all that part of the barranca. Here we camped, and first of all we made ready our dinner, for it was now noon, and we had sufficient appetite to flavor our dry fare. When the meal was done, we discussed the outlaw’s memorandum. ‘“N must mean north, of course,” I hazarded. “ Yes, you go north seventeen some- things from somewhere.”’ ‘Probably from the outlaw’s hut,” [ suggestéd. “ But how are we to tell what the seventeen things are?” Billy demanded. “They might be feet, or rods, or miles or inches.” ‘We might try each in turn, and see,”’ I said. “ Probably, though, it’s paces. That’s the usual thing.” bf THE ARGOSY. ‘“ But there’s the Sul part of it,” Billy objected. ‘“ Now, what on earth.is Sul? And what is 12?” | I confessed that I had no guess to offer. We reflected for a time in silence. Then, when I realized that I was un- ‘likely to hit on any interpretation of the phrase, I stood up. “IT can’t bear this inaction, Billy,” I declared. ‘‘I must make some sort of effort, however useless it may be.” “T understand. But what?” ‘“ Well, suppose we go to the hut, and work back from it, carefully, to the north, keeping a sharp lookout for any- thing that may turn up. In that way we are bound to cover the seventeen inches, or feet, or paces, or rods—anything under miles.” Billy assented, so we went back to the hut, and then began a tedious progress toward the north. We studied almost every inch of our course, but we could fix on nothing as a standard of measure- ment. The rocks that littered the place were too irregular to answer the purpose, and nothing else seemed repeated in any order. We rambled on, however, all the afternoon, covering a distance of per- haps seven miles. ‘The labor was wholly vain, so at last we set out to return to the cleft in the rock, for we wished to keep in the neighborhood of the hut. Here we spent the night. [ awoke in the morning to find Billy standing over me, finger on lip. ‘Keep quiet, Jack, he’s there!” my brother whispered. “See!” CHAPTER HiT, NURSING THE QUARRY, THe words startled me into wakefulness. “What? José?” I questioned in an eager undertone. ‘Yes, José. But be careful. The villain is sitting outside his hut. Peep over and you can see him.” I crept stealthily to the edge of the hollow in which we were sheltered, and looked forth. Yes, there he sat, loung- ing on the ground, his back against the wall of the hut, smoking a cigarette. (EO) .OO AMG S instant (C@