Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

FLIGHT TO in this city. She could not think of a friend in the whole sovereign State which would have the task of putting her into the pris- oner’s dock and trying her for her life. But over there “‘ back of beyond,’”’ where the mountains were broken ramparts, she had heard some say that State lines came together in ragged spurs like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. She had a vague idea that once across a State boundary one gained an initial advantage against prosecutors. People could fight extradition, if the worst came. That was all for later consideration. The thing now was to get away—far away and speedily. She did not even dare go to her lodgings for her suit case, or to change out of the clothes she wore; a sleazy finery absurdly unsuited to mountain travel. That room was shared by another girl, and the girl might be there. At a question she felt she would shriek. At the requirements of con- versation she would begin raving. She turned after a deeply long breath, seeking to crush out of sight her facial be- trayal of fear, as one hastily crowds rum- pled and untidy things into a chest and slams down the cover. Then she went out again to Haywood Street, walking careful- ly, assuming a nonchalance that might not transform her conspicuously from what she had been before the moment that had changed everything. Harrison had been right. She had in her the makings of an actress. Now she was giving a performance that proved intrinsic ability. With a conflagration of terror run- ning destructively through the whole fabric of her consciousness, she still carried herself © with the cool, deliberate slouch of a bored flapper. Every few steps she had to conquer anew the impulse to break and run—and to scream as she ran, but she went on with an impudent half smile on her painted lips, a picture of human vacancy. After walking a while she came to a cross street that seemed a quieter byway. The houses facing on it were, in many in- Stances, unlighted and looked like feed es- tablishments and produce stores. Into it Cynthia turned, her ears still tense for the general outcry which her alarm predicted. THE HILLS. 498 One could not plan definitely in sur- roundings of utter strangeness. One could only make wild haste, trusting to instinct, seeking concealment, hurrying and doubling as the rabbit and the fox do when the chase is on. But the rabbit and fox are born to that necessity, and react to the needs and the experience of countless generations trained in the same school. This girl came from a city where six million souls lived a collective life which encroached on individual action and_ be- came dependent on a thousand complexities —a life that stifled independence when the call came to stand alone or run alone. Now she turned into the less traveled street only because it seemed darker and quieter, only because she felt that there she could catch her breath for a few mo- ments-——and yet her inward urge spurred her steps almost to a run. Soon the side street betrayed her. She saw a burst of electric glare just ahead and found herself standing with a brightly lighted drug store at one side, an equally garish moving picture theater just across the way, and before her Pack Square, the central nucleus of the town. That open area clanged with trolley cars that centered here from every radiation of the system’s web, linking all the places, urban and suburban, that were served by the enter- prise of a growing city. The light of Pack Square, even here at its less crowded end, seemed to beat upon her sensitiveness with the painful intensity of the Kleigs when a studio scene is being shot and when the ghastly blaze stabs at the eyeballs. To the fear-appalled spirit whose windows were these throbbing eyes, the publicity appeared as intensified as if this were in actuality a studio set. To her fancy it seemed that the camera man had his instrument trained on her, and the director was yelling through his mega- phone: ‘“ Register despair! Register that every one thinks you’ve just killed a man, and you can’t prove your innocence.” There was a strangling gasp in the girl’s throat, but seeing a man pause and look at her, she stood indolent tor a moment, forcing into ber face the blankness of a bored indifference. MICLOO S C@ EO