Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

310 and of Pierre le Rouge vanished from her mind, for she remembered the invisible - guardian who had followed her up the val- ley of the Old Crow. Perhaps he was com- ing now out of the night; perhaps she would even see him. And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to a thunder. All the while his heart beats faster and faster and rocks with the sway of the ap- proaching engine; so the heart of Mary Brown beat, though she could not see, but only felt the coming of the stranger. The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasing uneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay, and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at the tethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if they feared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe —some vast and preternatural change— some forest fire which came galloping faster than even their fleet limbs could carry them. Yet all beyond the pale of her camp- fire’s light was silence, utter and complete silence. It seemed as if a veritable muscu- lar energy went into the intensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her ex- cept a faint whispering of the wind in the dark trees above her. But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceased their prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket of shrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the new presence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts away the sound of the street below. It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogether unpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and the great blue eyes abnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the eyes of the two horses held. Yet for all her prepar- ation she nearly fainted and a blackness came across her mind when a voice sounded THE ARGOSY. directly behind her, a pleasantly modulated voice: “Look this way. I am here, in front of the fire.” She turned about and the two _ horses, quivering, whirled toward that sound. She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between her and that side of the little clearing. The voice spoke again: “Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely.” “What are you?” “Your friend.’’ “Ts it you who followed me up the val- ley?” ¢ Yes.”’ ‘““Come into the light. I must see you.” A faint laughter reached her from the dark. “TI cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should have come to you before.” “But I feel—I feel almost as if you are a ghost and no man of flesh and blood.” “Tt is better for you to feel that way about it,’ said the voice solemnly, “ than to know me.” ‘“ At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have-cared for me.” “You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me.”’ ‘““ No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to Dick Wilbur?” ‘““That’s easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, and caught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns and let him go.” “But he didn’t come back to me?” “No. He knew that I would be there. I might have finished him. without giving him a chance to speak, girl, but I’d seen him with you and I was curious. So I found out where you were going and why, and let Wilbur go. I came back and looked at you and found you asleep.” She grew cold at the thought of him lean- ing over her. ‘‘T watched you a long time, and I sup- pose I’ll remember you always as I saw you then. You were very beautiful with the shadow of the lashes against your cheek —almost as beautiful as you are now as you stand over there, fearing and loathing me. I dared not let you see me, but I de- cided to take care of you—for a while.” Eomichoo (E) eee = yt en ee Se