Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

VALOR. “Tf they don’t,” gasped the boy, whose eyes were on the torchlight, ‘“‘ Preest won’t hang.” Aleck came then to the realization that this thing must be. For the first time in his life he knew at the same moment what fear was. He was afraid that this night David was to die. It seemed that the boy’s ~ alien spirit was carrying him to certain death, but not if Aleck Sheffield could pre- vent it. Not if his life could stand be- tween. He gave his mind to lightning thought. His hand dropped to his gun, fingering its butt, making sure it was loose to his pull. ““What’s your scheme?” he asked un- expectedly, and humor had come back into his voice again. David, his eyes on the flame, muttered his answer. *“‘ Ain’t got none. Just ride in an’ stop that hangin’,” he said. Aleck, dumfounded, did not reveal it in this new mood to which he was abandoned. In warfare Aleck was never surprised. In the split instant of silence that followed the boy’s amazing confession, Aleck swiftly re- viewed his position. Perhaps after all, the boy’s plan was best. “They'll know we’re comin’,” he set forth. ‘“‘ Dismount under the hill an’ leave the hawses with me! Hail ’em first, so’s they won’t shoot orf the hip. Then—God help you, kid!” That was all he could say, and as he, reached the end of speech they found themselves at the bottom of the same hill as that.on which, in the after- noon, David had met the girl. On it was the only tree in sight, and under that tree limned in the moonlight against the black outline of the barn was gathered a cluster of men who moved with few words about a sinister business. David and his friend dropped from their horses as they reached the hollow under the hill. Aleck seized the reins of both animals, and David, without a thought for the past or future, turned his back upon them to dart up the hill with the unwaver- ing directness of a homing pigeon. Harper Preest sat on a bare backed pony with his hands bound behind him and his “E9 back to the pony’s head. About his throat was the noose of a rope which had been secured to the topmost limb of the crooked cypress tree. In that position he had ad- dressed his executioners with a voice that rang sharply as the sound of a hammer upon tin; a voice that was keyed above the breaking point, for Harper Preest, faced by the veritable fact, was afraid of death. The silent men who were grouped on foot beneath his perch listened to him with a grim regard for this last hint of lenience which their victim was ever to enjoy, and while they listened he cursed with vivid, . simple words the body, the soul and the life of Bartholomew Parmelee. He knew well that the willful, unrelenting figure of the old man loomed darkly above this travesty of justice; he knew that primarily, before his offenses against the laws of the Jand or the unwritten laws of the range, he was now to die because of all the men of that harsh countryside, he had most in- sistently opposed its self-made autocrat. These things he set forth as he sat on his living scaffold and faced a future that of- fered him no hope. His executioners listened with ill-con- cealed impatience. They harbored against Harper Preest in that moment a grudge which was established upon the fact of his surrender. If he had resisted them; if he had offered the merest scintilla of an excuse for a swift, effective bullet, this painful scene would have been avoided. It was be- cause he had ridden forward with his hands aloft and given himself over to them for this business that they in their hearts up- braided him; and that resentment was the measure of their remorse. Preest had explained that meek surrender. He had a case! he had cried. Put him in a court of justice, he had declared with passionate profanity, and he would show up Parmelee for the skulking, thieving hound he was! And Dasent, hearing him, had known then that he could best serve his master by having the thing over prompt- ly. .For it was Dasent’s game to serve. So he cut Preest off curtly as he finished his wild arraignment of his enemy. “ All right!” he snapped. ‘‘ Swing him orf, boys.” (C@ =) a VOOLKS (COL