The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

806 She listened breathlessly to him, not daring to turn and run lest he put his threat into execution. Without know- ing just what was wrong, she felt that he was beside himself and was afraid to try any of the little arts that usually soothed him to almost servile obedience. “T’ve got ye now, ye little witch!” he exclaimed, rushing on toward her in a savage exultation that turned her sick and cold. Suddenly she was lifted off her feet. Sykes had lost sight of her for one in- stant, the instant for which Radford waited. A big rock stood up in the very way of the trail. Behind it, low so that he could look across it to where Natalie trembled, there was a place where the trail would naturally have gone—but it was made almost impassa- ble by the sharp points of small rocks that bristled up. The trail, therefore, swept about the rock; and, in that sec- ond of freedom from the hot scrutiny of Sykes’s wild eyes, Natalie disap- peared. Sykes came on around the rock. He did not see her, and re- doubled his speed on up the trail, believ- ing that she had fled toward the house. Without a word, his hand still over her mouth so that she would make no betraying sound, Ted fairly dragged Natalie back among the dark crevices. At any moment Sykes might discover that she had not rushed ahead and re- turn to look for her. Certainly when he reached the plateau of rock in front of the house which she could not have crossed and gained the door in time to ~ avoid being seen by him, he would know that she had hid somewhere in the fissures. “ He'll come back. Be still!’ Rad- ford said, then took his hand from be- fore Natalie’s mouth. Together they crouched in the shad- ows. They heard Sykes coming back, more slowly as if he had recovered from the wildness that possessed him a while before. “ Miss Natalie! Oh, Miss Natalie! ” he called softly as he moved slowly down. : THE ARGOSY. It was plain he had become his nor: mal self. Natalie started to go, but Radford’s hand fell on her shoulder and | pressed her back in her place. “He’s doing it just to coax you where he can get at you!” Ted whis- pered, so white-hot with anger and jealousy that he could have torn Sykes limb from limb and enjoyed it. It was a strange trick of fate that sent together the two Sykes would have given his own life or taken Radford’s to keep apart. It was the quintessence of retribution for his madness that he should himself be the means of crowd- ing Natalie’s trembling little body close to Radford’s in the narrow crevice where they hid. “Miss Natalie, I beg youah pahdon! I lost my head like a fool! Please come hyah. ,I cain’t go off an’ leave you out hyah alone.” “ He’s all right now—I better go,” Natalie whispered. Radford’s hand, warm and strong, had fallen from Natalie’s shoulder and had slid around her. In that indescriba- ble, half frightened ecstasy with which a girl obeys the man she loves, she sank back against the rock. “Good night, Miss Natalie,” Sykes called, and went off down the trail, thinking that she meant not to forgive him for his outburst and wisely de- ciding that silence and his departure were best. : But Radford was not ready to re- lease the little lady whom some fate, more tender than most of what had been dealt him lately, had given him. He held her till the sound of Sykes’s foot- steps had ceased and the thud of his horse’s feet came up from below. Then he turned to her. It was almost more than he could do to break the charmed silence in which they leaned there. But he must make her under- stand that he had not done the awful thing with which he was blamed. “Mile. le Fevre,” he began, feeling that he must let her hear him and recog- nize the truth of what he said before he would dare call her by her name or Gomichoo Sj (E@)