The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

HAMPTON OF home to watch the house, but I didn’t like the idea of being there alone. Toggles is a good watch-dog, but he couldn’t save me from being frightened to death if anything happened. I didn’t feel much like coming here alone, either, but I couldn’t see the man or his cigar any longer, and I pulled myself together and ran nearly all the way.” “To you think we had better go back?” Jerry asked gravely. “If you keep much money or jewelry in the house we really ought to take some precaution.” ‘““My jewelry doesn’t amount to much,” she answered, “but there’s the safe in the library; I don’t know what’s in it, but I think there is always some money and a lot of papers.” “Suppose we walk back there?” Jerry sugested. ‘You needn’t go in, if you’re too nervous, but we can keep an eye on the place.” “Tt’s what we should do, of course,” she assented, and they got up at once and walked swiftly up the hill. As they came near the house they could look down to the levels of the valley, and they saw the fiery eyes of: a motor-car moving up the Prescott Avenue hill. “T wonder if that is our car?” Eugenia exclaimed. “I didn’t expect father back so soon.” é ‘‘T don’t mind his seeing me, on my own account,” Jerry said quickly, “but will it be embarrassing for you if he knows I came here again to-night?”’ As Eugenia started to reply a startled gasp came from her parted lips, and she gripped Jerry’s arm convulsively with both hands. “Look!” she cried, and forcibly turned him toward the house. “It’s gone now; but I saw a light flash in the library—as though some one struck a match!” “Wait here; Ill see if anything is wrong,” said Jerry, and before she could restrain him he disengaged himself from her hold and ran up the path to the porch. As his foot touched the top step a shadow loomed out of the denser darkness of the doorway, something struck him THE HEIGHTS. sharply in the midriff, and he went over backward and sprawled in the gravel of the path. The dark figure, which he had seen as in a flash of the eye, leaped over him, and he heard confused sounds of running feet, the approach of a motor-car and a wild scream from the girl. CHAPTER XI. A CHANGE:-OF FRONT. ERRY’S breath had been driven from his body by the unexpected blow, but he recovered quickly. As he sat up and got, half-dazed, to his feet Toggles, the terrier, came leaping about him, barking excitedly. An instant later Eugenia was at his side and Milton Delroy came pant- ing after her. “A burglar?” cried Delroy, interroga- tively. “Do you think he got into the house?”’ “Tt was the man I saw here to-day!” gasped Eugenia, breathless with fright. “T couldn’t mistake him; I saw him as he struck you, and he was the same one!”’ ‘““He’s got well away, at any rate, thanks to my stupidity,” said Jerry, with disgust. “The next thing is to find out if he was in the house or just getting in.” Delroy, now muttering incoherently to himself, produced a key and unlocked the door. As the danger, whatever it was, had passed with the flight of the intruder, all three went in boldly. Delroy snapped on the hall lights and glanced quickly around him. ‘Nothing wrong here,” he said, with relief; “but we’d better have a look at the library.” Jerry caught the edge of the drawn portiere, to hold it aside, and Delroy started to lead the way. As he crossed the threshold there came the sound of movement within the dark room, then a stunning crash of glass. The two men sprang forward shouting, and Delroy whirled like a flash to the wall and switched on the library lamps. Go .OOKX AMUG 41 (C@)