The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

MESQUITE RANCH. realized that he was in the pitchy black- ness of midnight. There was not a trace of dawn. He stumbled toward the switch and flashed on the light. His bags, packed for his early de- parture, were all right. He opened one and took out a pistol, then hurried into the hall, switching off the light as he went. He was sure some one had been in his room and gone out by the hall door. Some one was coming along the pad- ded route. Radford could just see him in the faint light from some night- lamp on the wall. He waited. The man was just in front of him. He moved forward and pressed the pistol accurately over his heart. “Holy saints! I’m the butler!” the man gasped. Ted dragged him in his room and found out that it was true. He told of the intruder. “It’s time to get up, sir. I came to tell ye. Your coffee’s ready in the breakfast-room, sir,’ the man stam- mered, not over his fright. Radford ordered him to get the night-watch and make a search of the house, and to report the visit of the prowler to Mr. Barrington. He dressed, breakfasted, and went to his car. No trace of the intruder of the night had been found. At three o'clock in the afternoon Radford went aboard a_ west-bound train, unattended by any of the friends or the luxuries of his days of wealth. At ten minutes after three Bess Hetherington leaned over the marble balustrade and looked down into the pool. She saw a man lying face downward in the shallow water, just at the edge of the pool and at the bottom of the terrace wall. CHAPTER VI. TWO GUARD A SECRET. For one horrified second Bess looked down at the form so rigid and clear in 749 the water. Then she turned and ran toward two gardeners at work in the flower-beds. “Come! Come at once!” gasped, trembling and white. The men straightened up from their work and gazed at her, confused. Then they appeared to recover their wits.- — “ What’s wrong, miss? ” Bess started back, scarcely knowing what she did, and the men followed her. She pointed silently over the balustrade. The next moment they rushed toward a flight of steps that de- scended to the pool. As she leaned over the marble co- ping she saw her own face reflected, the image falling across the real figure of the man in the water. She started back, while the men dragged the drowned man to the grassy bank. Bess gathered her courage and forced herself forward to peer again over the wall. The stiff figure lay on the grass, with white, upturned face, and Bess gasped aloud as she saw it. Wild with the desire to be sure that she saw aright, she stumbled down the steps and ran toward the water. Her first glance had told her the truth. This was the man she had seen lying on the davenport in the library of Mrs. Barrington’s Fifth Avenue house. Ten minutes before she had been raged at her own stupidity. She had acknowledged that she had literally driven Radford away by her persistent nagging. She had looked clearly into the matter and had seen that she had counted too much upon his devotion, had scolded him beyond the limit of his patience. He had gone off without so much as leaving her a note of fare- she well, and she was too much her moth-~ er’s daughter not to worry lest she had driven even good-natured Frederick Radford to the point where the lover assumes the worm’s prerogative, and turns, : He was too decidedly the choice of the men she knew for her to feel com- fortable in having risked his good- CORMICLOOOKS (C@)