The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

712 that wants to be a cowboy, is he? I[ reckon we'll learn him!”’ Completely forgetful of the cour- tesy which was his usual manner, ab- sorbed in the rage against Radford that was really rooted in jealousy and that borrowed strength from every possible source, he started away from the house which had seemed heaven- like to him since Natalie had come. There was such concentrated rage in his very steps that Natalie and Miss Thorpe looked after him in alarm. Suddenly Natalie ran after him across the rocky plateau. which was the front yard of Phillipe le Fevre’s odd house on the butte. “M. Sykes!” she called softly. Sykes stopped in the trail that led down to where his horse stood. Then he turned and climbed back to where Natalie waited. He paused just be- low and looked up at her with his heart in his eyes. “You go— without adieu?” she reproached. “T’m—I’m so darned jealous!’’ he acknowledged. “* You—have—not—cause.” Nataiie was fighting a woman's battle. She saw deep into the stormy nature of her admirer. She read the thread of his jealousy—to Ted Rad- ford. She hated hereself for fearing it, for concerning herself so desperate- ly with Radford’s welfare. He was arich young man. He had probably many lovely women friends. She was foolish to care. But she bent, bent all of her soul, all of her charm, the witchery of her voice and eyes, to ‘saving him. She worked with every power she possessed to allay Sykes’s jealousy and stimulate his hope. “You mean that?” Sykes ex- claimed, reaching hungry hands for her. She slipped beyond his grasp as lightly as the starlight fell through the spaces of the night. Out of reach, she laughed down at him. The sound fell like balm on Sykes’s ears. It would have taken a keener man— THE ARGOSY. and a man not in love with her —to hear in the gay sound any more than the girl’s pleasure at the plain proof of her power that he had given. . ‘“I know heem only a leetle! I have seen heem once before thees night! You are seelly, M. Sykes! Go home -and sleep sound! Then you have more sense and not so much shoot in your head! Go home! Go home! Go home! ”’ She called the advice to him to a tune as she backed away toward the house. With his hat in his hand, he watched her move lightly to her im- provised melody. Then she disap- peared into the big room of the house. He turned again to the trail, mount- ed, and rode the nine miles to the Double X with a small witch-woman dancing in his brain till he almost saw her before him in the moonshine. CHAPTER XI. FRIENDS AT HOME ALICE THORPE awaited Natalie’s return with something like terror. She was bound by a promise to Dr. Stratton never to mention that she had had a patient named Bullen and to do all in her power to suppress any curi- osity that might lead to investigation of the death of the man found at the base of the terrace at Cressymere. Bess had gone to Stratton and told him all that happened on the night and morning of Ted’s hasty going. With- out telling her what he did, Midge got from her the clue to Radford’s actions. He knew that he was hard up. The snake-skin belt had apparently gone with Bullen when he left the Fifth Avenue house. Stratton believed that the real truth about it was that Rad- ford had taken it, had followed out the generosity which was natural to him, “and left the thousand dollars to Nata- lie and had gone to Cressymere think- ing Bullen could not follow. He had followed; and they had met. Bullen had been found dead in the S EOPMICLOOO (E@)