Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

le ee ee ee ee eS ee ey et ; - 624 ing. He found that he was perfectly con- . tent to remain there. Even to lift the pistol required enormous exertion. He wondered if Bicknell were dead, wounded, or only shamming. He wondered if he himself were badly hurt. He reached up to his left shoulder, and was horror-stricken when he heard the click of steel against steel. The pistol had hit the knife which still stuck in his body. The time passed, hours Alan believed, and then he became conscious that he was very cold. He no longer feared Bicknell, who had not moved, but now he realized the danger of death by freezing. The idea was not unpleasant. He was very tired and very comfortable. After all, he had done what he came to do. The others would be sure to find him and read the story. They would know. Helen would _ know. And then the thought of her, the glory and the wonder he had only glimpsed, aroused him, urged him to action, conquered his semidelirium. He struggled to his feet, dragged the heavy trap as he tottered across the floor to the one small window, shattered the pane with his pistol, thrust the weapon through, and fired it against the blackness. When it was empty he fell back unconscious. CHAPTER XXIV. UNRAVELED KNOTS, S the first shot echoed across the clear- A ing Helen Mears sat up in bed. Be- fore the sound of the last had died away John Macleod had risen from the couch across the door of Mears’s bedroom, and in the little room at the rear of the Chester kitchen Kwe-ses was dressing hur- riedly. Helen opened the door of her room and heard Macleod moving about in the dark hall. “Did you hear the shots?” she asked. “Yes. Four.” She heard him go to the living room, from the windows of which nearly all the buildings might be seen. There’s a light in the Chester dwelling ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, house,” he called. over.” Helen hurried into her clothes and joined him, and together they ran across and knocked at the door of Alan’s living room, Kwe-ses opened it. “Where is Gray?” Macleod demanded. “Till dress and go “He not here. He not sleep in his bed to-night. The lamp it lighted. The stove it going.” ‘Did you hear the shots?” iz Yes,” “ Which way?” “Over there,” and she pointed across the clearing. “This doesn’t look right to me,’’ Macleod said. ‘ Gray’s up all night, and now this shooting. I couldn’t believe your father did this thing, and now I begin to see how-—” * “Tt isn’t true!” Helen interrupted fierce- ly. “ Alan has found the fur, or the mur- derer, or something. Don’t you see? We’ve got to find him, help him. Come on. Get a rifle, and T’ll light a lantern,” They ran back to the Great North and got a weapon and a light. As they went out through the kitchen door two employees joined them, and then another figure came out of the darkness. Macleod récognized Mears. He was about to order him back to his room, but instead turned and fol- lowed Helen, who had started across the great clearing. ‘‘ Where was the shooting?” Mears asked as he and Macleod caught up with her. ‘We don’t know, except that Kwe-ses said it was toward the mission,” Helen an- swered. “Gray wasn’t home—hadn’t been bed,”’ Macleod added. ‘“T told you in the beginning he was—”’ the old man began, when Helen stopped and faced him. ‘You shan’t say that!” she exclaimed. ‘“ Alan is trying to clear you. That’s what he has been doing. And now you stand here and talk, when anything may have happened—when he may be dead or dying.” She ended with a sob that not only si- lenced the two men, but added to their wonder at her sudden defense of the free 9 A EORICL OOO in <S) (E©)