Argosy, Vol. 119, No. 2 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

ibe yok 1) bea a pe 2 . I< st tus = tart oe nwt eo Sage pS A =e roe cae fay Boo A . c ; Te > See - ; Pig a :=- - - -and I like that part of it fine—if I can go back to the Shepherd country. If you spoke a word to the judge he would let me go maybe and I could report to him by letter which is a better _ plan for the bulls would not know it. - To-morrow I shall stand under the clock outside the Golden Trust Company on Fifth Avenue. I shall be there at eleven o’clock ex- actly and I shall stand straight and silent un- - der the figure twelve. I'll be there until five minutes after the hour; I’m afraid of standing long because of the police spotting me. Then if you are going to help me you will meet me there, and if you speak to the judge for me I can leave the city. I don’t want any money from you, but it seems like you might be able to use your influence. And I will hand over to you a paper I wrote out the dream jobs on; I carry it next me all the time. I believe you will come to help me, Mr. Fane, you or some of the others. I’m writing to six other influential gentlemen what must know the right thing, but I’d like it best to be some one what knows Shepherd. God! but I love that country—seems as if only your fa- ther what is dead and gone knowed what I feel about it. He was a powerful fine man. . Your respectful friend, THE SCARLET RIDER. David read the letter through slowly, and laid it aside with a sigh. Tony had been standing with his back to him while he perused it, looking out of the window, but now he turned impatiently. “One thing,” he said, ‘‘ I simply have to ask. Why did you disguise yourself that way: bad English, all the rest of it? Were you afraid of the gang? If you had said: ‘Tony, I’m just out of jail, I’m David Cort- land, from Shepherd Mines, who played with you when you were a kid, and went to college with you’; that would have been all that was necessary. I’d have gone to the ends of the earth to meet you, and you'd never need to have told me another thing.” If it had not been for his earnestness, David would have laughed. - But instead, something caught him by the throat, and he had to swallow hard before he could speak. He rose impulsively from his chair and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Tony, you dear old simpleton,” he said, “Ti tell you why. J never wrote that let- | ier; I was never in prison in my life!” ee nen"? “YT know; it all fitted in so nicely. You saw me five and a half years ago, and I THE ARGOSY. _ vowed vengeance, then, on my father’s memory. You knew how he had been served, how, as chief of police, he had been disgraced and dishonored, so that he died of a broken heart as truly as any one ever did. You know that when the funeral was over I found papers which seemed to point to Malone—who succeeded him-—as the culprit. | “And then I disappeared. I had been your great chum, and not a Word out of me for five years, except that letter—so Icng delayed—I sent you when your father died. And, suddenly, you see me in the place of the man who wrote you that letter, — and it leaps to your mind that I’d been wrongfully accused of a crime and that the ‘police high up’ know this and are onto me. “Of course, you thought of Malone. And with your usual generous method of pro- cedure you identified me with the man who needed your help. Tony, you’re a brick and the most loyal friend in the world, but you certainly do butt your head against a stone wall or two, at times. You used to, you remember, when you played foot- ball. It’s a useful trick.” Tony was desperately embarrassed. His fair skin was dyed crimson, his collar sud- denly seemed to choke him. He squirmed under David’s half-ironical, wholly. amused gaze. Then, unable to resist the impulse, he sank down in a chair and laughed. “ Great Jehoshaphat!” he yelled. ‘Then. it was xot you I saw under the clock at all? I just jumped at the whole darned thing?” “No, you saw me there all right; I stepped in and stood there at six minutes after eleven, to see if anything would hap- pen. You see, I was one of the six men besides yourself who had one of those let- ters. I got there by ten forty-five. I swear no one made even the slightest attempt to” And as far as © stand there under the clock. I could see, we were the only two who made any attempt to answer them. I should think it was all a hoax, or something worse, but for one thing.” : He took a bundle of letters from his pocket and, sorting out one, laid it on the table. “ Here, you see, is the facsimile of the _ ~~ \ = > ie Sy oS aS, ee + Be nai a D> Rd eS vi F x ‘ ( i : ; Bey ey hs sf ay lc Ais ee nah otee GAEL ee cw ag’ PURE OFT GEE Zn DAY Ss " Tey gh cag set vai 5) ar mg 4