Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 3 — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

CHINOOK WINDS. close. behind him. Not a sound had she made through all the excitement. Masters knew enough of the cunning of the Oriental mind to apprehend that there would be an ambush prepared in the.outer room, which was now in darkness. As he and the girl emerged from behind the screen two Celestials sprang at him, but a shot rang out and one of the Chinamen dropped. The girl had stooped and se- cured Chang Lee’s gun as she had stepped over him, and as the event showed, she was not afraid to use it. It was only a moment before the other chink was disposed of. It was necessary now to run the gantlet in the darkened room, but while the darkness could conceal foes, it also could hide them. Between them, they had three weapons. They paused by the screen, and after a whispered consultation, fired six times in rapid succession into every part of the room. This resulted m clearing the way for their rush, which resulted in their finding the door locked. However, they found the low bay- window handy. Masters’s office, as has been said, was next door. Only a sleepy night watchman was on guard, and he was dropped by Mas- ters’s good right arm. Reaching his own room he snapped on the electric lights and settled the girl in his big revolving chair. | She looked up at him, fright in her eyes. He was very white, where his face was not scratched and bleeding, his left arm hung useless now at his side, the excitement which had made him ignore rather a bad wound was wearing away. But he collected his reeling senses to reassure his companion, smiled as he ran through the telephone book to get a number, and kept up a little run- ning fire of talk calculated to deceive the girl as to how groggy he felt. The bright splotch of color that her silken draperies made, danced rather weirdly be- fore his eyes, but while he was waiting for the connection, his brain magically cleared, and though the pain in his arm was intense, he found himself thinking clearly. Who was this beautiful girl, and what terrible turn of fortune’s wheel had landed her in the clutches of old Wun Sing? 405 At that moment Colonel Vining’s aide picked up the connection. was out. Masters explained who he was and where he was; that he wished them to send him some soldiers and why. And while he was explaining, he was looking at the girl in the chair. She had settled down and closed her eyes with a long sigh of mingled content and weariness, Her very helplessness made its inevitable appeal to a man of his fiber—poor, help- less little butterfly of a girl caught in the net of this wicked old Chinaman—in some way not her fault, of that he was certain, Poor little girl with the maddening eyes and the tender mouth and the blossomy face— all the beauty and sweetness and grace of her only served to make her misfortune seem the more poignant. For Masters was a man of the world, and he had decided that it had been a cruel misfortune in every sense of the word. When he at last hung up it seemed to him that eons had passed. “I must do something for your arm!” the girl now exclaimed. “To think that your chivalry should have got you into such terrible trouble. I had never seen any one but you to whom I could appeal. In fact, I have never had an opportunity to appeal to any of my own people, so carefully have I been guarded. The place where you saw me has been my prison for three years; rarely have I been permitted to ride out even in the sedan chair—” She swayed, and would have fallen, had not Masters caught her in his one sound arm. She did not lose consciousness, but clung to bim shuddering. “Fell me all about it,” he said gently, “if it will relieve your mind.” His arm closed protectingly about her, she clung to him with soft hands, he breathed in the fragrance of her beautiful hair with its strange Chinese arrangement, her blossomy face was very near his own, The colonel . He struggled against the temptation to kiss her and won. ‘““He was going to make me marry his third son, to whom he had promised a white wife—I was going to beat my head against the wall until I died if you had not come to my rescue—at the same time he would res Gomichbooks (C@