Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

+. - paused to listen. 756 into the gun-house she had chosen, and closed the steel door after her. Thereafter he sent a tray of food.. The steward who took it noted next morning when he car- ried it out that nothing had been touched except the glass of water. But Mary Arncliffe had not spent that night in hopeless sorrow and despair. An interruption had occurred. = ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Three hours after she had got back, a banana-skin dropped down on _ her lap through the sighting-hood. Idly she picked it up to throw it away. Then she saw scratchings on its yellow ‘surface. Shecheld these to the light. She read: / ~ “ Darling: Your tears are the most precious jewels I E. T.” ever stole. I'll earn you yet. ED HAGAN crawled to the door of the box car, and leaned out. Far ahead he saw the smoky horizon of the city and the tall chimney of the State penitentiary. He shivered, and at the same moment the train slowed down with a jolt. The door slid back suddenly, and Hagan detrained not at all in the manner which he had planned. In truth he hadn’t planned to leave the train at that point at all. For a full minute he lay very still in the bottom of the dry ditch while the freight — rattled on into the yards. When he opened his eyes and realized where he was, he scanned the terrain furtively, then scurried into the cornfield along the right of way. Once in the depths of the sea of stalks he The crackle of every dry leaf in the field seemed te rush to where he stood. He stood tense a moment, then his shoulders sagged, his head dropped, and he groaned in self-pity. . He made a ludicrous figure there with his checkered suit, his gabardine-topped shoes, and his rakish fedora. A long, polychro- CO N a. es vy Googles “stady. matic tie fluttered about his pale face, and his finger nails showed signs of having been polished recently by a professio : A stalk near him cracked, and he jamped as if the noise had been a pistol shot. Then he grinned foolishly and began to brush his clothes. He dusted one knee scrupulously; then sat down in the middle of the row. At every sound his head turned as though it were on a spring, and his hands twitched and fluttered about his face as though they were detached. “I guess I’m through,” he sighed rather tragically, and self-pity moistened his eyes. If Hagan had burned an orphans’ asylum he would have pitied himself on the scaf- fold. ‘Id give—” he paused in serious ““T’d give ten vears off my life to have last year’s roll again.” The leaves and stalks laughed dryly, and Hagan no- ticed that the day was gone and the sky was growing dark. He arose hastily. ‘“‘ God, this place would drive me bugs— all right—ugh!”’’ He started to run aim- lessly across the rows instead of with them. Everything combined to worry him. Top- o ” SAGO