Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 2 — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

a a04 “ See what, senor?” “You are a fool. Are there not brigands who kidnap men and children and hold them for ransom?” “That also is true, senor.” “Ane still you do not see?”’ ‘“ Nothing, senor.” “Tf Joseph Van Dyck disappears will it not seem that some brigamd, some out- Taw has seized him?”’ “Tt is true, also.” ‘“‘ Blockhead, if the boy is in my power ¥ have nothing to fear from his brother— his devil of a fire-eating brother, Dix Van Dyck. Let the boy disappear. Then I send word to Dix Van Dyck "that if a hair of my head is injured the boy will answer for it to my friends.” “ Senor, the thought must have come to you from heaven.” “< From meaven indeed, Remoso. be done at once.’ Let it THE ARGOSY. ‘“ She has come to haunt me,”’ he groaned, ‘‘ and I shall not sleep to-night!” CHAPTER XXXYVHEL. THE WHITE HORSE. S for Delores, certainly she was never further from thoughts of Senor Don Porfirio Maria Onate. She sat at this very time staring with her great black eyes across the sullen rec embers of the -camp-fire toward Dix Van Dyck. It was something past midnight, but they had only traveled as far as a convenient spring im the hollow of the hills, a little to the right of the main trail which led down toward Guadalupe. By the side of this spring they built their fire and screened it by rolling big rocks on all sides of the flame. Then, after they had cooked amd eaten, Dix Van Dyck threw off his clothes and she “ At once, senor. But how did the man ¥saw the faint white elimmer of his body break from the jail?” “The treacherous dog, El Tigre—and , then the two fought like demons and killed | many men. Adios, Remoso. Strike quick- ly in Guadalupe.” So saying, he hung up the receiver ‘and went back to his chair. The terror was passing, leaving him only weak and weary from the long hysteria. Comfort was. com- ing, and with its coming a great thirst. He drank again and again until his brain hummed. Out of the humming grew a sound, and the sound after a time took on the semblance of a human voice. It was extremely odd. The drink, the sharp reaction, had thrown him into a sort of a delirium. He was conscious of a fever and a lightness of head for which the drink could only he par- tially responsible. And in the meantime that faintly singing voice chanted in his head. ‘ He canted his ear to it and listened with a frown. And at last he made out that it was his own thought which kept repeating * in his own voice, over and over: “ Dolores! Dolores mia! Devil Dolores! Dolores, my beautiful!” The sheriff fell back helplessly in his chair. m the distance while he bathed and shaved in the cold water which trickled down from the spring. She marvelled with her childish mind at the dexterity of a man who could handle deadly steel and shave himself in the dark. She marvelled still more when he came back beside the fire. With the unkempt ° erowth of beard and the red marks of the battle gone, his face seemed singularly pale for one who had hived all his life in the open. The leanness of that face had now hecome almost cadaverous, and suggestive of mamy things. It seemed to Dolores, as he sat there with one of her dead father’s blankets wrapped e around his bare shoulders, that two men sat there confromtmg her in one form. For when he sat with eyes lowered and staring at the flicker of the fire, she was conscious of the man’s great weariness. He was. tired, it seemed, body and soul. The thin face seemed thoughtful, sad. There was a suggestion that the straight set of the mouth | inferred a —— and en- durance of pain. It seemed the face of one who had borne through many bitter trials; whose trust in men and women had been burned away hy hardship; who had fought the world and — comic Sj .OO GOr