Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

THROW UP YOUR HANDS. head, which appeared to be piling down up- on Yumpa from the direction toward which Friday Pepper was agonizedly pointing. Suddenly, above the rumbling of thunder, the shouts and yells in Hell’s Delight, came the pounding of horses’ hoofs. Then lightning blazed in forks and streaming layers. Its ghastly light illum- ined the oncoming horsemen. As if they were racing out of the very heart of the tempest, they came! Behind them, the gar- ish green curtain of the advancing storm, seeming to wave them onward; before them, alone in the middle of Yumpa’s only street —Red Wilpin and Friday Pepper! Down the empty street abreast galloped the lost posse! —Gory Oliver, Karl the Kill- er, Mrs. Yost, Marshal Sniffin, Judge Ogle- thorpe, Spavin Yampdon and Julius Yost! The air and the ground shook as another blast of thunder crashed overhead. Some one was plucking at Red Wilpin’s sleeve. It was Margery Corbin!”’ ‘What are you doin’ here?” he gasped. “T saw them from my window—minutes ago!”’ ‘‘ Where’s the mailsack?”’ “T gave it to Friday!” He stared about him. Only a moment ago Friday had been standing beside him. He was now nowhere to be seen. ‘“‘Where’d he go?”’ “T don’t know!” she wailed. ‘“ He saw me coming and he ran toward me. took the mailsack—and vanished!” ‘““Didn’t he say anything?” “Yes, he said: ‘We must protect the U. S. mails no matter what happens!’ ” Then it was that a savage cry, hardly human, rang out: ‘“ Throw up your hands!” CHAPTER XX, PRISONERS! UMPA shook with another blast of thunder. And in the greasy green flare of the lightning that accom- panied it, and the white effulgence stream- ing from the windows and doorway of Hell’s Delight, onlookers saw that Red Wilpin, in obedience with the harsh command, had o41 elevated his hands high into the air and that the pretty, slim, bobbed-haired girl beside him had flung her arms around him and was clinging tight. The posse, under command of Marshal Sniffin, had meanwhile closed about the two in a ring that bristled with the gleaming black muzzles of automatic pistols. ‘ Disarm that man!” the marshal cried. Julius Yost, wearing a smile of cynical amusement upon his thin lips, dismounted. With a contemptuous gesture he flicked the revolver from the holster on Red Wilpin’s right hip and tossed it to the ground. “Disarm the girl!” Mrs. Yost called warningly. “The little harridan would stop at nothing—nothing.”’ | The little harridan, her soft cheek pressed tight against the bristly, rough jaw of Red Wilpin, whispered tenderly: ‘“Oh, my dear, my dear, I thought they had been buried under tons of rock. This is the end. Oh, it seems so unfair, so cruel. Why! It was only this morning that we met. And after all that we’ve been through —oh, they can’t part us now!” ‘“ "They can’t, eh?” Julius Yost sneered. ‘“T gave you your chance this morning, Margie—a life of ease and Juxury, and you threw it down. You jeered at me. You called me an ugly thing. And you thought you'd escape. Hah! You grabbed at the first chance that came along—this red- headed roughneck. And now-——do you know what’s going to happen to him? He'll swing!” Snugeling close to the breast of the man she loved, Margery Corbin stared at him in terror. A grin flitted over the lips of Red Wil- pin. And the eyes he turned upon Julius Yost were gun muzzles. “They may get me, buddy,” he said quietly. ‘ But if they don’t—and you can jot this down in your little red notebook where you keep the names and addresses of your chorus girl friends—I’m goin’ to give you some lessons in etiquette that you ain’t never goin’ to forget.” ‘“But—but we’re trapped!” the girl wailed. ‘‘ Look, dear — there are pistols everywhere. Everywhere I look I see pistols!” COMmiicloooe