Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

BAD BILL STARK. _ step. He had to see and overhear unless he were to cover eyes and ears and shout his presence from the yard. But as the voice that answered Papineau’s husky squeak was that of Janet McCullough, and the form standing in front of his rocking- chair hers, Stark had no time te think of ethical niceties. ¢ ‘By dam’!” came from the old man, and then his words rattled out like a pat- ter of hail. ‘TI tell you no once, twice, three time! Not now! Bimeby, when I die, yes!” : Come through, you old fool!” said Janet, clearly and distinctly, ‘“‘ or you won’t get me! Do you think I’m going to wait around and wear calico—wait for you to croak? And I don’t trust you!” “ Mebbe I don’t trus’ you!” Daddy leaned forward in his cushioned chair. '“ Mebbe you play hell wit’ young feller on Papineau’s money? I guess not!” “Why, Daddy!” she mocked. ‘“ You don’t treat me right—considering I know just where you’ve got those twenties and fifties and hundreds salted away!” Stark, standing on the doorstep, saw Papineau rise from his chair and lift the fiddle that had lain across his lap as though to bring it down over the girl’s head. Bill set the door trembling with a thundrous knock and shoved it open in time to catch the tableau just as he had seen it through the window. Janet had remained where she stood, but her face was pale as she turned it toward Stark—pale and a little drawn. “Ugh!” grunted the old man, sitting down heavily. ‘‘ What for you come round here to-night?” “¥ want my coat, Daddy,” said Bill, “and my hat, too, if somebody else ain’t wanted ’em first.”’ Papineau pointed silently with his bow to where coat and hat hung upon a nail. Stark slipped his arms into the sheepskin and looked at the girl, who had not yet spoken to him. “J guess you better let me take you along as far as the Turners,” he said quiet- ly. “It’s dark as a stack of black cats.” She hesitated just long enough for him - to see that she did so, and with a toss of 601 head and fine scorn in her gray eyes for Papineau, she turned toward him. ‘*'Yes,”’ she agreed, “ ‘Pt go with a regu- . lar man!” If the thrust scorned on Daddy he did not show it; and when Bill closed the door he was still sitting motionless with the fid- dle in his arms. Out of the yard and for many rods along the rutted highway they walked in silence. “Well,” she said finally, from the ob- scurity at his side, “ you heard something, I suppose?” “Yes.” He wished the moon would come up so that he could at least try to read something from her face. - “‘ He wants me to marry him.” ‘“‘T don’t blame him, ”” replied Bill. “ Not at all.” ‘‘ And I want his money!” “Ye-ah?” doubtfully. ‘“‘ And he knows it!” “He don’t think any more of a dollar than he does of his right arm,” said Stark. “You dummy!” she cried suddenly. Her hands grasped his coat and she tried to shake him as one shakes an obstinate child. ‘“ Don’t you understand anything at all? Don’t you know that I’m playing him and Hurley off against each other to see which one I can get the most out of? I’m a bad lot!” ‘“‘T know,” he answered, standing rock- like with his arms at his sides, “ that you ain’t a bad lot.” “You don’t know anything!” she mur- mured, and her hands relaxed their grasp. “I’ve been around some,” said Bill, “and I’ve got to admit you act like a bad lot. But -you ain’t. I don’t believe it now, nor I won’t, ever!”’ Suddenly her laughter pealed into the darkness. How she lashed him with that laugh! It cross-indexed him as a fool—as a big hulk of flesh so far beneath her ‘in the scale of mental evolution that hardly could his imagination bridge the abyss. It made him experience the apotheosis of inferiority. “Tf you had—old Papineau’s money,” she whispered slowly, with her head bent near enough 90 that almost her hair brushed his face, “ you'd believe it, all right.” Bill did not in the least think of. of himasell € m3) _ MG Conn