The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

DARING THE DANGER ZONE. Nancy closely in order to obtain all the information he could about her father’s disappearance. Mr. Gale, it seemed, had given no specific address where’ he was to be found in New York; but Gerard wrote letters to the two hotels where he had most frequently stayed. He also wrote to a classmate of his own who was an assistant district attorney, explaining the circumstances and asking that whatever search was possible should be made for the missing man. “The trouble is,” he said to Nancy, as he finished his letters, “ that we have no real clue from which to start. We are not even sure that your father ever reached New York, “However by starting this inquiry we are doing something. If there has been any unexplained disappearance, Carrington, in the district attorney’s of- fice, will be likely to have a record of it and trace if down.” Nancy sighed. “If we could only find out anything! Nothing could be worse than this absolute suspense. When a chance comes to get the letters mailed I shall feel that at least there is something to hope for.” They went out onto the little porch and seated themselves on the steps. All round them like sentinels stretched black mountain walls that seemed to shut them off from the outer world absolutely. Not a breath of air was stirring, and in sympathy with the silence about them they talked in low. voices. Nancy questioned Derby as to the world beyond the seas about which she knew only from the point of view of one who has eagerly read, and he talked to her in the careless manner of one who has seen most of the things of life with- out realizing the opportunities he was having. “TI do envy you so!” she exclaimed, when in answer to some allusion of hers he had spoken of experiences along the Riviera. ‘“‘ When I think how narrow my own life has been and to think that _ 101 = you have seen and lived in the places I have dreamed about!” “There is very little to envy,” he an- swered. “ Until the last six months I have never known what living really was.” He outlined to her his adventures since he had left San Francisco. “Those are the only things that have really ever taught me anything,” he went on. ‘And at the school in which I am a beginner, you have been brought up. It is you who are fortunate. which one sees merely as an onlooker really becomes a part of one at all.” He stopped abruptly. From the rocks on the left of the shack there came a clicking sound as of a metal tipped shoe- lace trailed over a rough pavement. In the absolute quiet of the night the rattle sounded sharp and distinct. “ Are there many rattlers round here?” he asked. “The cliffs are full of them,” an- swered Nancy, unconsciously tucking her feet beneath her as if for protection. Derby drew from his pocket the short wand that Selim Beg had given him on the steamer from Alexandria. The moon- stone in the handle glistened clear in the darkness. “Perhaps, after all, my Hindu friend was right, and I may have need to be a snake charmer some day,” he laughed, repeating to her the incident on the steamer. “I am afraid, however, that the common sense Yankee rattlesnake might not be affected by the same mystic formulas that seem to be effective with cobras and other denizens of the Far East. I hope I shall not be forced ta try.” Nancy took the wand from his hand and examined it curiously. The won- drously woven silks about the stick seemed the very incarnation of the spirit of snake- dom. Gerard rose to say good night. He looked down approvingly at the revolver which hung from her belt. No life — ‘Tf I were you,” he said, laying his | COLMUC DOOKS (E@)