Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

BAD BILL STARK. | woman. ‘Carry my satchel down for me, will you?” ‘‘ Sure,”’ answered Stark, as he put on his cap and coat. “ Keep cool, grandma, I'll promise not to get up a four o’clock again if I_live to be a hundred!”’ He followed the girl out into the night ‘ with his mind little more than a question- mark—he knew that the satchel was mere- ly an excuse, but he did not ask for any explanation. She set a pace that grew fast- er as their eye# became accustomed to the darkness and he noticed that her dim form took care to remain always far enough away from him to be out of arm’s reach. So they went on for a long time. The gray ghosts of the mountains began to rise in the east, and the glaw of red dawn touched very faintly an overcast sky. Bill maintained now the silence of obstinacy. He would see the thing through in her way —and then he’d have his for a little while. For with his blood sirfging in his veins. again his faith in her, lost for a moment as he tumbled out in the cold, returned: she was too high spirited, and it was up to him to take care of her. It thad grown light enough so that he could see her face as a white blur when she halted; and he realized that just ahead of them stood the dejected house of Papin- eau, showing the long-time niggardliness of repairs even in the semidarkness. ‘ Bill,” she said, “ I broke up your sleep to-night so it wouldn’t be broken up any more after this—maybe it wouldn’t, any- way, but I thought I’d prove what I said to you a while ago. Remember I said you'd believe I was a bad lot before you was much older?” ~ “Yes, but I don’t. Not yet.” “ You will, Bill. And I want you to go dewn to the Forks and marry Nellie Bur- pee, like I said.” She turned, still taking care to maintain the distance between them, and with a gesture led the way along the shelter of a brush-grown fence and up to one side of Papineau’s house. “I’ve got Daddy’s roll, Bill, and it’s a big one!” She stood poised, with her at- - tention equally upon the house and upon him. Her voice was toned down almost to a whisper. “It’s where he won't see it 603 again, and I’m going to take a train out-of here this morning. He couldn’t prove any- thing on me if he tried—but he’ll never let cn that he’s lost anything. I know him. And now you know me, Bill. I’m no good; but if I’ve jolted you into going to work and being a regular feller, I’m glad of it. And I guess I have.” ‘ What—” Bill Stark struggled with a dryness in his mouth. “I don’t believe it —but what did you bring me here for, any- ‘‘ Yes, you ‘do believe it!” she triumphed, and he knew that she spoke the truth. “ But that’s what I thought you’d say, and that’s why I brought you here—I could have beat it out of town and said nothing, but I wanted you to see Daddy Papineau come down-stairs and look for his money, Just as he does every morning, and find it gone. Oh, Bill! I’ve got you all sewed up! In ten minutes you won’t think any more of me than you do of a dirty, mean Again she moved forward, before he ceuld find words to reply, and he walked after her mechanically. He felt now as he had when he.learned to swim; he was in a medium that choked him, that pulled him down, that stifled thought ard action. A spiritual medium this, and one that threat- ened spiritual death just as that other had threatened physical death. He must strike out. She beckoned him to her side. Crouch- ing under a window, her hat off and her eyes raised just above the level of the sill, she whispered: ‘‘ Promise not to stop me when I get ready to go?” ‘“‘T promise,” he said, and took his place beside her. ‘He gets up at the first peep of day- light,’’ she explained, and pointed into the - room where a lamp, turned low, burned upon a table. ‘“ He keeps a light all night so hell have the advantage if anybody breaks in—and the first thing he does when he comes down in the morning is to see if his money’s safe. I stayed under this win- dow from dark till daylight a week ago to find out where he kept it hid. See? That's ' what he had it hid in—there on the floor DOOK COMNMUCLS CO