Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

66 “Amy took in the sound of the words, but not their sense. Her arms now released, she looked about for a means of escape. Black Pete intercepted the glance and the design back of it with an evil grin. ‘“* Why should my lady,” he asked, ‘‘ want to leave so good company? And _ with monsieur, madame’s husband, about to make us a petite visite, too! It is best that my lady waits him here.” “You must let me go! This minute, do you understand?” demanded Amy desper- ately. ‘ You have no right to keep me here like this!” ‘““No?’’ mocked Black Pete. ‘“ Have of patience, my lady. To show you our good heart, we will take you to my home below ”’ —with a jerk of his disheveled head he in- dicated the patched roof of the nearest shack a few yards distant—“ and there let you wait the coming of monsieur. Of course it is no grand house like the house of—” ‘‘ Tell me—oh, tell me,” interrupted Amy breathlessly, “ what I can do, what I can give, to make you listen to me. There is nothing you can ask that I will not gladly hand over. Only say the word—name the sum—”’ 3 Black Pete listened to the last syllable of her impassioned plea with scornful calm. “There is a saying in the French, madame,” he returned .with deliberation, “ that is often true. It is, ‘ Mieuwx vaut tard que jamais,’ or, in your tongue, ‘ Better late than never.’ But I regret me that this is one of the times there is no ‘ better ’ about the lateness—your lateness and monsieur’s.”’ ‘“‘ Have you no pity, no mercy?” groaned Amy. ‘* Mercy? scoffed Black Pete. ‘‘ Had monsieur mercy when we of Canuck Gulch asked for but a few sticks of his worthless fire-wood?” ‘It was not worthless and it was not fire- wood.”’ An indifferent. Gallic shrug of the shoul- ders was the only answer Amy’s retort called forth. “An avant!” At Black Pete’s command, two of his retainers fell into single file ahead of Amy, the remaining pair brought up the rear. The chief himself walked by Amy’s side. Amy slid, Who ~speaks of mercy?” THE ARGOSY. ‘“ We of the—the committee, do you call it?” he explained as they followed the nar- row foot-path, “ will wait with you under the shelter of my humble roof. Monsieur leaves not till some time. That I know well. -We were but practising for mon- steur’s reception a moment ago. It would be a pity if all should not go well at the reception.” Amy suppressed a wild scream only with the utmost effort. The band had by this time reached a short but sharp descent. With Black Pete’s aid, awkwardly tendered, rather than walked, to the threshold of his miserable cabin. It was a cluttered, slovenly interior that met her eye. Odds and ends of poor furni- ture, mostly of home manufacture, were propped up at indifferent angles. A _bat- tered deal-table in the center of the room was minus a leg, while rickety stools ap- peared in danger of collapsing at any mo- ment. On a miniature rusty range, that plainly had known neither blacking nor brush, sizzled a smelly stew whose chief ingredient appeared to be garlic. A bench supported, in unstable fashion, a tub of sudsy clothes—or rags, rather. Evidently it was wash-day in the domestic schedule of Black Pete’s wife. Emerging from the steaming clouds of moisture, that shrewish, black-eyed woman slowly lolled forward. Her age was per- haps thirty-five or thereabouts. In a sav- age, coarse fashion, she was not bad look- ing. Resting calicoed arms, bared from the elbow down, akimbo on her ample hips, she looked Amy over with studied insolence. ‘“The grande dame, eh?” at length she muttered. ‘‘ Not often do fine folks o’ her kind find the trail to Canuck Gulch.” Then with a sourly humorous gleam of under- standing at the men: “ But perhaps one helped her a bit, who knows?” Her fellow countrymen greeted the sally with chuckles of delight. Even the taciturn face of the black chief relaxed somewhat. ‘“ Paulette has right,” he declared. “ Very much the right. One helped madame.” Then to Amy: “ But my lady mus’ sit while she waits for her so kind husband, mon- sieur.”” Amy lunged, rather than sank, into the GOMIIG OOO SS (CO