Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

THROW UP “Margie! Friday!” the red-haired leader shouted. ‘See that patch 0’ bowlders yonder? Make fer it! Drop down behind it! From that vantage point we could hold an army at bay fer a week!” They gained the cluster of bowlders, dis- mounted and dropped from sight. Their mountain bred horses, trained to such con- tingencies, promptly kneeled down and rolled over, so that they too would be pro- tected by the bowlders. Red Wilpin seized the girl by the shoulders. Margery Corbin huddled close to him and her upturned face was radiant with courage. | “Tm not afraid,” she cried. “Is it— good-by? Oh, I think it’s perfectly glor- ious to die this way, Larry! To die fight- ing! It’s the way we all should die! Oh, I’m so—”’ “Look!” he stopped her in a harsh voice. “My God—look!”’ “Good Gawd!” Friday Pepper moaned. “Oh!” the girl cried. “ It can’t be!” The ground upon which they kneeled was rumbling, but not with the pounding of horses’ hoofs. The posse had stopped per- _ haps three hundred yards away. Now they were retreating in disorder, and all were looking upward at the sheer mountain wall which rose thousands of feet above them. The wall was bulging outward. A bowlder as large as a two-car garage came bounding down to splash mightily into the roaring stream. It was followed by others large and small. The face of the wall was sliding-—sliding! Perhaps some gigantic forces, some stresses and strains within the earth, had chanced to exert their pressure at this moment; perhaps some stray bullet or the vibrations aroused by the hammer- ing of so many hoois had caused some cleavage in the wall face to widen. Now tons and thousands of tons of loosened rock were tumbling into the gorge. Down they came with an earth-shaking thunder. And instantly the hght from the distant sky filtering into the narrow gorge was extinguished. The air became dark with dust, and the black powder of grind- ing rocks. Thunderclap followed thunder- clap as bowlders plunged down to the bot- tom. YOUR HANDS. 900 Margery Corbin huddled closer into Larry Wuilpin’s embrace and shivered. Ii death were to overtake her now, she pre- ferred to spend her last moments in the arms of this man whom she had learned to admire. Then she realized with a little thrill of happiness that he was holding her close to protect her from the deluge of rocks in case the landslide crept this way. Above the uproar he shouted: “Did you see them when it fell?” ‘They seemed to be directly under it!” she cried. ‘‘ They must be buried under tons of rock! Oh, how perfectly terrible!” The thundering ceased. Presently the air took on the grayness of dawn as the heavy dust settled. Soon the grayness be- came yellow, then objects became visible. And in time the blue stripe of sky reap- peared thousands of feet above them. And as far as they could see down the path which they had followed was a mass of torn and shattered rock. The gorge was choked. The avalanche had filled the stream, and created a dam which towered above them hundreds of feet. And the stream was rising. If they did not hurry they would be as rats caught in a trap. Friday, white with a thick layer of dust, came crawling over. His eyes were dazed. “Red,” he gasped. ‘‘ Where—where’s th’ posse?” ‘“Wiped out!” ‘“ D'ya mean—they’re all daid?”’ Red Wilpin nodded. ‘‘ Yes—dead, all of them.” He flung out his hand. “ Yonder’s their grave, Friday.” Margery Corbin suddenly seized Red Wilpin’s shoulders and shook him. ‘“ Larry! Larry!” she cried. “‘ Don’t you realize what it means? It means we’re free, dear! We're free!” CHAPTER XVIL. YUMPA. HEY hastened toward the end of the sorge, which was but a half mile dis- tant. They were awed by the catastrophe which had befallen the posse, yet they could not but feel relieved and a comicbooks.conn |