Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

24 for him. It might be a genuine fainting spell, and it might not. One thing, how- ever, was certain. He was unquestionably, or had recently been, a convict. His hat had fallen off in his plunge to the porch floor; his black hair was bristled. I felt his heart; and it was beating slow- ly, dully, as the heart of an unconscious man should beat. With that assurance of his sincerity, I went into the house for whisky and a glass, and when F returned he was struggling to sit up. I helped him into a chair and held the whisky to his mouth. After one sip he pushed it away and coughed, then dropped his face into his hands. He sighed heavily and looked up without lowering his hands. “Been drivin’ since five this mornin’,” he wheezed. ‘‘ From Brunswick, Georgia. My brother and sister are out in that swamp. I guess you don’t want to put us up, do you?” Before I could speak he said: “I don’t blame you. I guess I look pretty tough. Well, I could stand it and my brother can get along all right, too, but my sister isn’t used to it. She’s almost dead, she’s so tired. If you'll fix her up for to-night my brother and I can flop out there on the grass. I know I look like a bum. I don’t blame you for wanting to get a gun; and if it wasn’t for the kid—” He paused and stared at me. There was, of course, only one answer to that. The laws of Southern hospitality wouldn’t tolerate any other answer. “My wife and children are away,” I said, ‘‘ and I can accommodate the three of you without any trouble. While you go down to bring them up I’ll see about bed- ding. You’d better bring all the stuff in your car that’s worth stealing. These blacks work fast.” He was shambling off down the cement sidewalk before I had finished; and he had not uttered a word of gratitude. I was to learn that Phil Pomeroy parted freely with only one emotion—hostility. My preparations for the return of the convict with his brother and sister were, for the most part, the sort of preparations that a man might make who is confidently expecting burglars. All small objects of ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. value in the downstairs rooms I removed to my bedroom. A rifle and two shotguns I placed in my bedroom closet. A _ .32 automatic pistol I shoved under my pillow. The commissary and post office money worried me. A new gang of negroes had recently been put to work in the Vingo Rock Company’s quarry, and they had spent their first two weeks’ pay as they al- ways did for money orders to Sears Roe- buck and Montgomery Ward. I had be- tween $300 and $400 in the house, mostly in small bills and silver. This small fortune must be properly concealed. I concealed it by placing the various canvas bags in a large clean paper sack and burying this in the bottom of a half-empty flour barrel. When the Pomeroys arrived, I was pre- pared. Having been forced to be hospit- able, 1 decided to play the part of a genial host. I was at the screen door with the mosquito fan to welcome them when they trudged up the steps, laden with the para- phernalia of travel. The brother I dismissed with a glance as they wearily introduced themselves. His name was Bert and, where Phil was pale and thin, he was swart and heavy—a dark, forbidding man with thick brows and straight, thick black hair, but with the same probing black eyes and ten days’ growth of curly black beard; a man, I guessed, of the soil. But the sister was cut from different material entirely. She was no more than . nineteen, a brown-eyed girl with curly chestnut hair, bobbed quite short, and a nice smile. Her boyish motoring costume of khaki shirt and knickers, only revealed her girlish contours. Her cheeks were pink with sleepiness or embarrassment; and the tip ef her small nose was smudged with powder, a concession, I imagined, to her inhospitable host. Even through their fatigue and dustiness I could glimpse the hostility that was waiting to reflect mine. But I was as gracious, as host-like, as I knew how. I seized their suitcases and lumpy bundles and thrust them into the sitting room; cordially urged them to sit down and rest a moment before going to their rooms; begged them to let me make them some sandwiches. CORnnicloool< (E@