Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 146 No. 4 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

THE FIRE PEOPLE. : & danger. We were in the enemy’s country _-an enemy whose methods of attacking us might at any moment prove a hundred times more efficacious than they had so far. But we did not consider that then. There was, indeed, nothing else we could have done advantageously. This road we were on was the only one within twenty or thirty miles. To have struck west from our wrecked plane—away from the Mercu- tians—would have brought us to face a hundred miles or more of desert over to the Yellowstone. It was now broad daylight—and almost cloudless, as is usual in this locality. Half an hour of walking brought us nearly to the outskirts of Garland. There was less smoke all the time. We judged the fire must be pretty well burned out by now. Behind us the smoke of Mantua, a much larger town than Garland, rose in a great rolling cloud. We were walking along, wondering what we should find ahead, when suddenly behind Garland and off to the right we saw an- other huge cloud of smoke rising. “ Powell!” ejaculated Mercer, coming to a dead stop in the road. ‘“‘ Good God, they’ve got Powell, too!” There was no doubt about it—the town of Powell was also in flames. We sat down together then at the side of the road. We didn’t quite know what else to do. We were both faint. Our situation seemed every moment to be getting worse; we ap- peared further from even comparative safe- ty now than when we left our plane at dawn. There seemed nothing else to do now but go ahead into Garland, a distance of only half a mile. There we might find food and water; and, thus refreshed, we could start back north to cover the fifteen miles to Frannie. Garland, a few days before, was a town of about five hundred inhabitants; but I do not suppose«that, at the time of its destruction, there were more than a score or two of people remaining in it. - We started off again, and within twenty minutes were among the smoldering houses of the town. It consisted practically of only one street—the road we were on—with 493 the houses strung along it. The houses had been, most of them, small frame structures. They were nothing now but smoldering ‘heaps of ashes with the chimneys left stand- ing, like gaunt, silent sentinels. As we passed on down the road we saw several twisted forms that we took for the remains of human beings. It is unnecessary for me to describe them. We hurried on, shud- dering. : Our objective was the lower end of the town, for there, perhaps a quarter of a mile off to one side with a branch road leading to it, we saw a single house and out- buildings left standing. We turned down this road and approached the house. It was a rather good-looking building of the bungalow type with a wide-spreading porch. Beside it stood a long, low, rectangular building we took to be a garage. . There was an automobile standing in the door- way, and behind it we caught the white gleam of an airplane wing. “We're all right now,” cried Mercer. “'There’s a car, and there’s a plane inside. One of them ought to run.” At this unexpected good fortune we were jubilant. We could get back to Billings now in short order. We climbed up the porch steps and en- tered the house. We did not call out, for it seemed obvious that no one would be there after what had occurred in Garland so near by. “There must be something to eat here,” Tsaid. ‘ Let’s find out—and then get back to Billings.” The big living room was empty, but there was no sign of disorder. A closed door stood near at hand. “ That might be the way to the kitchen,”’ T suggested. ‘‘ Come on.” I pushed open the door and entered, with Mercer close behind me. It was a bed- room. The bed stood over by a window. I stopped in horror, for on the bed, hunched forward in a sitting position, was the body of a man! With the first sudden shock of surprise over, we stopped to note details. Theman’s hand, lying on the blanket, clutched a re- volver. A mirror directly across from him was shattered as though by a bullet. A COmicloooks.conn