Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 157: what you’re looking at

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

THE SNOW PATROL. “T do anything to get Ledoux!” She was truculent again. “Did he know the truth?” I demanded. “ No,” she smiled, “I fool him, too. He get pretty big surprise. I guess he be good man at that when I get through with him.” “That part of it was no surprise to him,” I flung back at her. “ He went with you, -knowing what he was doing. But he was cheated, at that. I begin to believe he got his lessons in cruelty and trickery from ou.” Sheila had bent down over Muir’s body. As she struggled to her feet, Wageesh put down a hand to help her, but she drew away from it as though its touch were poi- sonous. “You hate me,” the woman muttered, “but I do a great kindness to you: it is something to know that the dead are dead. You are young—and you are free now. When you look at this man, who does so much for you, I read your eyes. I know I do you no wrong. I bring you happiness —not to-day, or to-morrow, but—” “Stop her, stop her!” Sheila cried aghast. “ That’s enough!” I said. “ We are not interested in what you think. You wait here.” She was not abashed a bit. She smiled THE w Le} 147 her old, inscrutable smile as I led Sheila indoors. I came out immediately and told Wageesh to drive over to the post. There the two of us carried the body inside. Later it would have to be placed beside Simpson, and with hardly more ceremony than he had won. I told Wageesh she could go. She start-_ ed away without a word. Fifty yards from me she stopped and called back: “IT send Ledoux to you when my people think you got a chance to go. tame know better than white man.” I didn’t answer, and she didn’t wait for me to do so. She was far away by the © time I reached the cabin. I sat down on the doorstep, loath to enter. I thought of Muir, as I sat there, and of Ledoux, and of the tremendous changes which the past few weeks had worked in all of us. The course of my existence had been changed. My own words came back to me: “ Life does not end here in the lonely cabin.” How doubly true they were now—true with a new significance. Ahead of us the long trail beckoned. “ If life had only been different,’ she had said. She had wished it so. I could never forget that. No mat- ter how long the days or years, that thought would lead me on—and up—to her. END. LoJ AUTUMN’S GOLD N° silken curtains shade the light, The rugs grew not in Persian looms; But everywhere to meet my sight A golden beauty shines and blooms. In vases on the mantel shelf, In sheaves against the unused grate, Behind the plaque of azure delf, And in the windows full jars wait. By mountain paths, by meadows’ edge, This largess for myself 1 won— This wealth from out the rustling sedge Wrought by the alchemist, the sun. Who would be poor, when to the hand Such filigrees"in splendor nod? Gold arabesques all o’er the land— The golden plumes of goldenrod. M. Hancock, COmiclool< (C@