Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 2 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

216 around as they moved side by side into the circle of illumination. Spaulding expe- rienced a curious feeling of pride in the girl as she stood beside him, wet, disheveled and flashing the triumph of success from her dark face. ‘The Gull showed her heels to the sher- iff,’ she announced, “and he’s beached here in the cove, I think. Thanks to Mr. Spaulding—and you owe him for a smashed rudder, dad!” There was a muttering of approval. Devil Downey smiled his cracked smile. ‘Sheriff Hardy will be able to find us as soon as he sees the fire we’ve lighted for him,” said the leader. ‘“‘ Meantime—”’ A bellow which Spaulding recognized as that peculiar to big-girthed Sheriff Bill Hardy drowned the words of Devil Down- ey; and the sheriff, backed by two deputies armed with rifles, crashed out of the brush. “In the mean time the cussed boat got off with the load of booze you was hoping to land!” . Hardy paused to level an ac- cusing and trembling finger at Spaulding. “ Thanks to Hugh Spaulding, the loafer! We don’t want you around Presbury, Spaulding, any more than we want Down- ey and his gang! And I’m going to get you first-of all just to pay for this night’s_ work.” Spaulding grinned cheerfully; he rather liked to have a man of the sheriff’s type bellow at him, and while he, in sober judg- ment, would have been with those enforcing the law, he now took a kind of perverse pleasure in posing with Downey. = “Do you hear that, Downey?” he cried. ‘‘ Aren’t you proud of me?” “You fouled our steering gear!” cried Hardy. ‘‘ We had ’em bottled up here if you hadn’t cut in!” “A sail boat has the right of way— isn’t that so, Mr. Sheriff?” But Hardy had passed beyond power of adequate rejoinder. Fairly swelling with rage he turned and strode off in the gen- eral direction of the village, his men crash- ing along behind him. ‘“ Vou’ve made an enemy!” exclaimed Trene. “You mean another enemy!” laughed Spaulding. THE ARGOSY. “And he’s made a clean fifty dollars,” interposed Downey, with a narrow gaze that passed from the girl to Spaulding and back again, ‘if he knows enough to keep his mouth shut and—and keeps his feet on the ground!” Hugh Spaulding believed the inference to be that he must not dare to lift his eyes to Devil Downey’s daughter; therefore, he deliberately insulted the one-armed chief. ‘““T keep my mouth shut because it’s a habit,” he said, ‘and I don’t want your money. But if there’s anything I do want I'll take it!” He said this, looking at Downey. For an interval neither man shifted hand or foot or eye; then Spauldins; turned to the girl - and carelessly tucked a trailing end of her scarf over her arm. “Come, Miss Downey,” he said. “ I'll have to take you home by the road, and it’s a long way.” That broke the spell that had. held them all—Strong and Tite Garneau and Marble. They started forward as one, but it was Marble who first came within striking dis- tance of Spaulding. Bat was in the act of launching the foul body blow for which he was notorious when Spaulding stepped toward him and a little to one side. The blow went past, he placed his arms around the smuggler and grinned into his face as the impetus of the attack carried them both out of immediate range of the others. Of his gang only Devil Downey kept his head. It was the iron hook at the end of his cork arm that drew Bat Marble, raging incoherently, out of the grasp of Spaulding, and his voice that stayed Tom Strong and Tite Garneau. “Wait!” he cried. “I’m the one that’s got accounts to settle with this cuss, and I’ll do it so they won’t be no afterwards!”’ Spaulding met Downey’s eyes and then turned deliberately away, still smiling. He had gone perhaps a dozen yards when he heard swift feet behind him, a gruff, quick | command from Devil Downey to halt—and then Irene was at his side, breathing hard. “Thank you, Mr. Spaulding,” she said. “T’ll be very glad to have you take me home!” COMMICLOOOLK< (C@)