Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

SUNDOWN CAFE. no other way. No other man could get this key from me. He tried it.” She pointed to the ferns. ‘‘ No, there ain’t no treasure in that tomb—don’t think that. But the girl Modesta—it’s her ancestor’s grave. If she knows—”’ “Do you reckon I’d hide a carcass there which I’m responsible for and then give the key away?” Boscoe snorted. This was certainly an unanswerable ar- gument. Why not trust this man with the key? He would most certainly guard it with his life. Besides it meant she had a man—a powerful, heroic man—for an ac- complice. She handed it surreptitiously to him as one will pass a bribe. She must have feared that those patio walls were watching the deed. But as soon as his hand had closed upon the rusty bit of wrought iron she reached again with the impulsive desire to beg it back. “No, give me the key. We can find another way. The key—”’ 251 It was futile. To beg it back now would make it worth that much more to him. Perhaps he would never return it. She held her peace while he was engrossed with the business at hand. He reached among the ferns and tossed the sack of inert flesh and bones upon his shoulder. She watched him stride off into the cane- brake. A binnacle lamp cast a shaft of light on his broad back as he labored through the thick underbrush. And then she saw him in the miasma like a huge gray image with a hump on its back, fading away until he was part of the dark. It was the entrance of the parrot that brought Cora back to the colorful existence of the Sundown Café. “Dead and be damned!” the bird squawked. ‘“ The scullion’s axe his cheek had shore.” Cora hurried back into the café, masking her face in a bland, ingratiating business- like smile. TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK Lv} S Lv J HESPERIDES EYOND the blue rim of the world, Washed round with languid-lapsing seas, Where the wind’s wings were ever furled The ancients dreamed Hesperides. Ship after ship each age sent forth To find the islands of the blest; The loosed winds drove them south and north— Yet west they weathered, ever west. Sky after sky they dropped behind, Those heavy-handed, bearded men, ‘ Till, seeking what they might not find, They rounded upward, home again. A desultory waif of time, Flying adventures from my mast, ’T was thus I voyaged every clime To come back to myself at last. Harry Kemp Go NOOK AUUG (C@