The Argosy, August 1914 — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

NOBODY LOVES “A LOSER. side. The hand which clutched his turned limp and cold. Looking at her he found she had fainted. CHAPTER XVIII. SAM LEVINE’S PROBLEM. THE fact that he had just sustained one of the great surprises of his life was insufficient to stifle Sam Levine's humanitarian instincts. Disengaging his attention from the beach below, which indeed had yielded up as much of its story as interested him, he put into practise such simple methods of restoring consciousness as he was fa- miliar with. Finding them ineffective, after a couple of minutes he gathered the girl in his arms and staggered across the fields, toward training quarters. Be- fore he had covered half the distance he was blown and reeking, His habits had unfitted him for a career of life- saving. He was overflowing with gratitude that the distance was short. He clung pluckily to his self-imposed task, and, having gained the house and laid the girl’s limp form on a sofa, shouted loudly for his factotum Mac. Together they labored to bring her back to her senses. When their efforts were had been re- warded he bade Mac get out. Intuition suggested that he was due to obtain some information best suited to private possession, for the moment, at any rate. ‘ Is he dead?” she murmured. “Who? -Butch? Dead? Why, he ain't even wounded,” Sam replied en- couragingly. “ He ain’t half as bad off as you. Here, a touch of this sherry won't hurt you none.”’ . The girl drank obediently and in a couple of minutes was able to sit up. Sam had been waiting for this to pro- pound a number of highly important questions. His first was: “Say, what’s your name, any- way?” “Vesta Dawn,” she replied. “Vesta Dawn!” He placed her in- 173 stantly, and the discovery merely add- ed another perplexity to the situation. He headed for it directly. “I thought you was Jack Garrett’s girl,” said he. “Me? Why, I don’t know how you came to think that, Mr. Levine,” Vesta gave back. “‘ Butch and I are engaged to marry.” “ But — but —’’ Sam stammered confusedly. He decided to let that line of inquiry wait. “ How’d you happen to see that fight?” She looked up quickly, and he noted a flicker of pain in her eyes. The cor- ners of her mouth drooped. She broke out, unexpectedly to herself as well as to him: “Oh, Mr. Levine, could you -help me? Would you? Butch has prom- ised to marry me. But he_ got the swelled head through beating Jack Garrett, and worse when you took him - to fight Reilly, and now he says he won't till after the fight, anyway, and I don’t know if he will then. And he ought—” She stopped suddenly. Sam pressed his previous question. “ How’d you come to be there when they was fighting? ”’ * Why, I—I knew Butch ran on the beach. I’m stopping over to Oldham, at the Imperial. Sometimes I come over mornings and meet Butch and we have talks. That’s how I came to be there to-day. I—well, I wanted to see him.” A lurking sense of something be- hind these strange happenings he should know about pushed Sam on to cross-examination. “You can make your mind easy about Butch not being hurt much,” he consoled. “I’ve seen Jack Garrett hand out that sleep-producer before. He knows just how to slam it across without making it too painful. Say, were you there when it started? How’d they happen to fight, I’d like to know?” “Yes; [ was waiting. I saw Jack come along the beach from off that way. He acted like—”’ S COMMICLO® (C@)