The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

58 Jerry saw Kingsale round the corner above, and he whipped off his hat, turned up his collar and began trundling the cart along the pavement, with his back bent over the handles. By hurrying, he gained one of the two blocks. that lay between them at the start, then slowed to an even pace and held it. Kingsale stopped once in a shady place and took observations, but it was evident that he cast no suspicious glance atthe man trundling the peanut cart. The thought occurred to Jerry that his fugitive might take it into his head to buy a bag of peanuts, but peanuts are for the light-hearted and frivolous, and it was un- likely that a man still wet and shivering from a-well-nigh fatal ducking would think of such an indulgence. Block after block was covered, up a steadily increasing grade, and the pur- suer’s arms and legs ached from weariness and the unwonted exertion. He had never dreamed that peanut carts were burdens for draft horses rather than men. He expected to see Kingsale stop at some tenement house on Amsterdam Ave- nue, or cross Washington Bridge to The Bronx, but One Hundred and Eighty-First Street was passed while he was thinking about it and Kingsale was toiling up the rising grade to Fort George hill. _ “Tf he’s headed for a merry-go-round or a beer garden,” Jerry thought glumly, “I may yet have to heave to and play the full part of a peanut seller.” The run ended, however, just beyond the broad lawn of the Isabella Heimath at One Hundred and Ninetieth Street. King- sale crossed to the east side of the avenué, glanced behind him with an air of easy assurance, and turned abruptly into the obscure side door of an abandoned shoot- ing gallery. Jerry was no more than thirty paces in the rear when he disappeared, and as he heard some inner door open and shut he waved his hand to the Greek rearguard and abandoned the cart. Depending on Kingsale’s bold assurance, he ran just as boldly to the dark doorway and listened. THE ARGOSY. He heard men in animated conversation, evidently two of them, but their voices were too low to make their words intelli- gible. After a moment Jerry stepped back and made mental notes on the place. There were battered shooting gallery signs spread across the front and a repre- sentation of a rifle and target in wood on the post by the entrance; but the building was ramshackle, and seemed to have been out of commission for a season or more. There were no windows on the front, and the space above the ol@ counter of the gal- lery had been tightly boarded in. He did not want Kingsale to find him there if he came out, so he crossed the ave- nue and climbed the precipitous rocks to the remains of the old Revolutionary forti- fications. There he sat down in a rocky hollow, and there he remained until mid- night, drowsy and nodding at times, but never.fully off his guard. No person left or entered the old builds ing, and when he was satisfied that he had found at least the temporary headquarters of the man he climbed higher, to the plateau above the rocks, and after a short- cut across the open lots was at the door of. his own house. CHAPTER XVII. A WORKING ALLIANCE. "THE grandmother at the breakfast table upbraided Jerry good humoredly for his continued late hours. ‘And this time,” she added archly, “you missed a visitor that I’m sure you’d ’a’ been very glad to see. Mr. Tarleton called about eight o’clock.”’ ‘“Ah!” exclaimed Jerry, concealing his excitement, ‘“Mr, Tarleton called, did he? Then he has returned to town; or didn’t he leave town at all?” ‘““He’s very, very busy,” the old lady ex- plained, ‘‘and he just ran over here to see you because he had to go right out of town again. He said he just wanted to shake your hand and say ‘ howdedo,’ and he was COMMICLOOOKS (C@