The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

HIS ISLE OF REFUGE. use for that sort in the Palantic and I hope they'll not raid it to-night. Candidly, Mr. Saville, I wish you and your little boxes were in Peru. Why the deuce didn’t you leave it all at the bank until you flitted?”’ Saville laughed. “T’ll be gone in the morning,” said he. “In the mean time—” “You want your stuff put in the ice- box,” interrupted Cordwainer. “Of course you do. I was only just wondering why I hadn’t heard from you before. Seemed a silly thing to me you didn’t have it put there right away.” “fT had my reasons,” replied Saville, “but now I would be glad if you would see to it personally with me. You see there’s nobody about just now.” “That’s true. Ill get a couple of porters at once.” : The boxes were duly deposited in the Palantic’s strong-room and Saville received a receipt which he placed in his pocket- book with extreme care. “And now,” said he, “I am dining @ la carte, old man, all the way from the big P. of Palantic to the printer’s name at the bottom.” Something in the ring of Saville’s voice | made Cordwainer look at him curiously. _ “DPjidn’t catch any touch of fever back there in the woods, did you?” he asked. “Swampy parts some of it, and your eyes look too bright to please me.” Saville took hold of himself. He must not betray himself at the eleventh hour. “Oh, I am feeling right enough,” he re- plied. “It is only relief at having got over a stiff job. Stanbury put up a pretty hard one on me. No wonder I’m feeling what old Carmichael would call ‘fey.’ ” But he kept rein on himself after that, not that he regretted having displayed a little excitement. It would all fit in with the game he was playing. He dined and dined well, even if he did not sample the whole menu as he had threatened, but he strictly abstained from strong waters. He knew that in his pres- ent highly strung state it would take very little to make him thoroughly intoxicated. 115 After dinner he met the proprietor again, “Feeling better?” asked that gentleman genially. Saville was the great multi-millionaire’s trusted confidant, and Mr. Cordwainer considered him worth considering. “Good as gold,” returned Saville, who had on hat and overcoat. “I may not see you in the morning. I am going out by the nine, so I’ll say good-by, in case.” “T have got to see you and your blessed cargo off, if it is by the . naught A. M.,” grumbled Cordwainer half-jest- ingly. “Don’t you fear—and what is more, I shall be mighty glad to hear you are safe at the other end of your journey —wherever it is—somewhere up Hum- boldt way, isn’t 1t?” Saville winked. ‘‘ That’s tellin’s,” he replied playfully as he lit a cigar. Cordwainer grunted. “Struck some bonanza, haven’t you, you and Stanbury? Well, adios, if I shouldn’t see you—but I shall in the morning, sure.” “Tf you count on that, you’ll sure be disappointed,” muttered Saville to him- self. ‘So Carmy has given you a friendly tip, has he—and I thought he was Scotch.” He left the hotel and was swallowed up in the murky gloom. He made one call— at a telegraph office—and then went di- rectly to the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railway. CHAPTER VI. A MILLIONAIRE MAROONED. OULSON STANBURY stood on the little sandy shore listening for some minutes after the sound of the motor-boat had died away, then he turned with a - shiver. He was alone, marooned on this little clod of an island, left powerless while the man who had betrayed him went and rebbed him of a million dollars! Some men might have fallen into a frenzy of impotent rage under the circum- stances, but Coulson Stanbury had had the cards stacked against him on many pre- vious occasions, and more than once had CORNICGLOOOKS (C@