The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

& 838 THE of a pistol. He climbed over the wall —and was drowned. Tell Lucile—” The voice died away. ‘Ted Radford, shaking as if he were in the clutch of a chill, staggered up from his crouching position beside the man who had just struggled and failed to draw another breath with which to voice his mes- sage. “ Barrington! Barrington is Nick Bullen!” he gasped as if, even yet, he could not comprehend the disclosure that had come. Silsby tore loose from his captors. He dashed across the room toward the man he had shot. “You're too late, Silsby! over,’ Ted said. Gradually all the truth of Nick Bul- len’s discovery of the wealth of the Cochinino Mine came out. He had managed to get financial assistance to It’s —all develop a claim which he called the Bonita. After he had sold his interest in the Cochinino to Radford, senior, he and Watson had run across a prospector who had discovered the lead which grew in size as it approached—the old Cochinino claim. The prospector had not yet secured his papers. Nick Bul- len had killed him and fixed the blame on Al Watson, who was sent to the penitentiary. In the fight that had accompanied his quarrel with Watson, who found him ready to appropriate the dead man’s property, he had given Watson the blow which resulted in the paralysis of his tongue. He had arranged the evidence and had led the hunt which located Watson, unable to move and speechless beside the dead body of the prospector. Watson had been con- victed. Bullen, a man of superior education to his associates, went East, changed his name, organized the Bonita Mining Company, and proceeded to get fabu- lous wealth from the mine which was really the old Cochinino claim. Al Watson served ten years; then, with the aid of an old associate. who ARGOSY. was willing to share the wealth he con- fidently expected -to secure, he went Fast. Tle had made his effort to reach Nick Bullen on the very day that he, as Hugo Barrington, was marrying the woman to whom he had first given his attention because she or her son must be in possession of one of the three deeds to the Cochinino, while he him- self possessed the other two. But Watson had failed in his effort. And Barrington, informed fully by what he saw and by what he learned from Bess, had meant to keep the evi- dence he could offer of Ted’s having killed the dumb man as a threat to hold over the head of his wife’s son if he made any move to find out about the Cochinino or to use the deed he held. : He had taken the money from the belt Watson unfastened to show him his resources. He had tossed it into the lacquer vase, thinking that when it was discovered it would merely be account- ed one. of the strange curios in the wonderful house he had bought com- pletely furnished for his handsome bride. His dying words were truthful; he had not meant to be the cause of Wat- son’s death. But he had heard his wife coming to seek him. . He had hurried Watson out at the point of his pistol and told him he would communicate with him through his office later. Watson, knowing the desperate na- ture of his old companion, had fled before the gun, had bolted across the lawn, and come to the wall. Taking it for a fence over which he could climb and get beyond the range of the gun, he had fallen over, had been too weak to stand the excitement, had lost consciousness, and drowned helplessly in a few feet of water. “You heard what he said?” Ted suddenly said as he faced the sheriff. “ That he didn’t intend to kill Bullen? ” ~-¥ ep, -I heard.” “You? You? You?” Ted demand- ed of the deputy, of Silsby, of Red. DOOKS Comic (E@)