The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

MESQUITE RANCH, continually ground by poverty and the starvation of her soul. I[f—” The tears were streaming down the cheeks of the usually unemotional wom- an. Dr. Stratton gulped at a lump in his throat and nodded before he could speak. Miss Thorpe seized his arm. “You mean it will be all right— that I may take it to her?” she cried shrilly. “Tt’s a gift. I’m sure she can take it. The note will be evidence enough —if any one questions—that Bullen meant it for her,” Stratton answered. Miss Thorpe struggled with her feel- ings for a moment. Stratton knew what the money meant to her and to Natalie. He had seen Miss Thorpe fighting for the girl’s life when a fever attacked her work-wearied, nervous little body. “When Mr. Radford and Natalie were here Mr. Bullen mentioned Pinon, Arizona. He knew Natalie’s uncle,” Miss Thorpe said as she began to collect her belongings. “Radford saw Natalie?” he asked. “Yes. He brought her up in the elevator when she made a mistake and knocked at his door,” Miss Thorpe re- plied, and added, with a look that showed she acted as a sort of watchdog over the little French girl— Why do you ask?” | Stratton himself was a bit puzzled to know why he had made the inquiry. He explained that Radford was one of the tenderest-hearted men he knew—if he happened to notice. He was proba- bly touched by Natalie’s wonderful soul and the body obviously too weak for its great demands. But the inquiry had roused the some- what suspicious nature of the nurse. She objected, with the strength of ex- perience, to men of Radford’s kind in- teresting themselves in the souls of girls like Natalie. “T’m not sure but that I share my patient’s dislike for Mr. Radford,” she said sharply, tucking the precious thou- sand dollars safely away in her suit- case and turning to the door. 747 “Bullen disliked Radford?” Strat- ton asked quickly. “So much that he began positively terrifying when Mr. Radford tried to talk to him,” Miss Thorpe answered. The words started a new idea in Dr. Stratton’s mind. If Bullen had learned of Ted’s departure and had taken ad- vantage of the only time he had been left alone since he came to the house to leave, and if he had displayed such a marked enmity toward his host, it was altogether probable that he had set out to follow Ted. The thought fitted in with Ted’s story that Bullen had suddenly appeared at the house, and it dovetailed with what he believed to be the truth though Rad- ford did not corroborate it—that Bullen had come to avenge some score and had attacked Ted. It looked as if he meant to carry out his original intention. Though he was weak, a man with nine thousand dollars could command services which would enable him to get wherever he wished. . Stratton hurried to a telegraph-office and warned Rad- ford that his invalid guest had sudden- ly disappeared. Radford made such time that he cov- ered the distance to Cressymere in time for the delayed dinner. Bess, his mother, and Barrington stood on a marble platform guarded by a solid wall of the same white material as he swung into the formal courtyard of the great house. 2 Before he was allowed to go and dress, his mother made him look over the marble ballustrade down into the pool beneath which reflected trees and wall and even their own faces in its limpid depths. It-was a marvelous place, and it helped Radford in the dinner conver- sation with his stepfather. It was per- fectly clear to him that Barrington really wished to be liked by him. He might have unbent more easily to his advances if Bess had not shown so much eagerness in furthering his inter- ests with the multimillionaire. By the time dinner was over Ted was in a ra- (EO) TOO AMG S {E©)