Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

128 Bagley threw clenched hands aloft, beat- ing the air. ‘Ill kitll—” he growled like a beast. “ Pll—kill—” ““No you won’t! You ’d killed me up north if you dared! I bluffed you with a lie about havin’ things fixed at Furney if I didn’t come back. I’m bluffin’ you now. You don’t dare to kill me, here in the crowded. town, where every one would know. You could do it with a wallop—but you dassent!”’ His voice had strengthened, rising to a soft, semiscream, seamed, maimed, hideous, he limped toward the squat giant who stood and shook with impotent anger and with disgusting fear. ‘You always played safe,” pursued the gray man. “ Play safe now, an’ die in the poorhouse, while I die in prison! i Yes. My bag’ s packed; the certified check’s back in my wallet; I’m gettin’ the Western flyer for Laidlaw, Alberta. I'l deliver that check to the development com- pany, an’ then ask ’em to. let me die in prison—for what I did!” Bagley muttered, disbelieving his ears. “ For what—you—done? What—”’ The one sound hazel eye blazed, the other stared sinisterly as the gray man came a step closer. ‘For what I did! -It was when they asked me my name at the hospital it came to me, first for self-preservation. The initials were the same; it would help if anything about Mason’s identifyin’ marks got into the Ontario papers. So I told ’em it was Henry Meigs. Nobody knew Henry Meigs was in it, the third man. ‘“‘ Then it came to me what to do, through prospectin’ to make good for what I did in Alberta. I couldn’t wipe out all the rough stuff in my life, but I could pay up for that. To look you up an’ make you do the work, an’ use the one good eye the Lord left me to locate the leads, like I used to; that was the ticket. An’ it’s done! : ‘‘ Just to pay up, an’ then die in prison where I belong—that’s all I want. It won’t be long—the pains are shootin’ down deeper; they’ll reach my heart—an’ I'll be glad! ‘In the wreck, that’s where I got mine. THE ARGOSY. An’ in the months o’ pain afterward I learned through what seemed years—the answer.” His rasping voice broke a little. The single good eye was suddenly wet. His withered hands clenched, trembling. He shook convulsively, this man of less than forty, who looked seventy. ‘“T learned in that smash what God kills in a man to make him fit to die. It’s—sin!” Through it all Bagley had stood as if rooted, incredulous, rigid with amazement and awe, with an uncharted chaos of feel- ings. ‘““ Who—who are you?” he gasped. Again the scarred face was turned to him, the visage that had once been a pleasure to look upon. Came the rasping voice with no note, so changed was it by pain, recogniza- ble to him who had known another voice in former years. “Why couldn’t I have bluffed you, when I knew you better than any other man ever did?” asked the gray man. ‘“ Here’s some- thing you’ve seen—ho-v many times?—in the old minin’ days. “ Look!” Swiftly he uprolled his right sleeve. Tat- tooed upon the ghastly, scarred forearm, wasted by disease, showed the initials: 6¢ H. M.” ‘“ See?” asked the gray man. “ The real Meigs is buried in a pauper’s lot here in Toronto. He robbed me that night, after gettin’ me drunk, an’ he was in the forward sleeper with the bag, gettin’ ready to hop off at Mohican, when the crash came. The third man in the deal was the first killed, tryin’ to double-cross the others! | ‘You know me now, eh? So-long!” Con Bagley, penniless, unable to pay for his room and meals, sat at the window, stupidly staring down at a meager gray, limping figure entering a taxicab toe go to the station. Mulling it over and over, he tried to realize the monstrous truth. - Big, virile, upstanding Herb Mason, whom he had lured to his last crime— changed by the hand of God to that body— Which, nevertheless, contained a towering soul! Gomicboo SS (CO