The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

102 hand on the gun, “I’d keep that pretty close to me most of the time. Ii you want help, it is the best little caller there is.” The moon had risen full, and as he walked along the ridge to his shack, he noticed the beauty of the alternating streaks of black and silver. Bushes and trees stood against the sky-line almost clearer than in daylight. Sharply the silence of the night was broken by the shrieking crescendo whine of a bullet. Derby instinctively dropped to the ground. In his hat, which had fallen from his head, were two small, clean punctures. There was no report. Derby crawled the rest of the way to the shack, where by the moonlight streaming in at the window he examined the hole. “Tt is no time to take a chance with a light,” he muttered to himself as he twist- ed the hat round and round in his hands. “ Thirty-thirty and steel jacketed,” he said critically, looking at the neat punc- tures. ‘‘A good shot at that. And no possible clue. It might have been fired from a mile away or within two hundred yards. When Maxim invented the silencer, he opened the way to possibilities of crime that would make the Borgias blush at their ignorance and incompetence.” Softly he awakened Moran and showed him his hat. ‘Tt seems to me our friends are getting less particular in their methods,” he whis- pered. ‘“ Perhaps your friends of the secret service have given up the chase. I think that from now on we’d better take turns in sleeping and watching. It is ten now. Turn in again, and I will call you at two.” Morar assented to the arrangement. “Keep a good lookout toward the magazine,” he said, as he turned over in preparation for his four hours’ sleep. “ If you see a shadow move there, shoot.” Derby, crouched with his back against the outer wall of the shack and rifle across his knee, kept guard until the moonlight THE ARGOSY. on his watch-face showed him that the hour of two was past. Then he called Moran and turned in, to a sleep that was filled with fitful dreams, through all of which shown out the dark, sinister face of West Symmonds. A challenge and two shots in quick suc- cession awakened him, and he jumped to his feet, seized his rifle, and rushed to the door. He could just see in the half-light Moran’s figure running toward the maga- zine. He started to follow, when, with a blinding flash and a roar as of a thousand thunderclaps rolled into one, the gulch burst asunder. Gerard was hurled from his feet and onto the ground. Instinctively he held his arms over his head, as though they could be any protection again the rain of boul- ders and timber that fell from the sky. Regaining his feet, he staggered forward fifty yards through the blinding smoke, until he tripped and fell over a limp form. It was the body of faithful Moran, who had given his life in protection of his em- ployer’s daughter. ‘By God, some one will pay for this!” gasped Derby, as he tore open the old miner’s shirt and placed his hand over the silent heart. The lifting smoke showed no human figure in the landscape. “ Clever!” he groaned. “ Another ‘ ac- cident.’ ” He picked his way through the tangled wreckage to Nancy’s shack, his mind filled with ominous foreboding. The walls were riddled as if from the fire of artillery, but Nancy Gale, unscathed, flung open the door to him, her long hair falling in waves down over her shoulders and her hazel eyes dilated wide with excitement and fear. She said nothing, merely looked up into his face questioningly, waiting for him to speak. “The magazine!”” he gasped briefly. “They got it, and poor old Patrick evi- dently saw them and tried to make a fight for it. I heard his two shots, then the explosion. I found his body.” The tears streamed down WNancy’s CORMclOOOKS GO