Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

BLACK OR shut? Suppose he came into this room with- out difficulty?” ‘He won’t!” sneered Hedge grimly. ‘But suppose he did?” urged FT enton. “And then suppose that after he got in, while he was fooling about trying to find this money, or open the safe—supposing he discovered that we had been in here all the time, waiting for him? What would happen then?”’ A pause followed—a momentous, im- pressive silence. ‘““By Heaven!” cried Grover. ‘ We’d have him trapped!” “You would!” agreed Fenton amiably. And because his plan was so simple, be- cause to the hungry man hunters whom the bandit had so often tricked it offered such sure success, they agreed to accept Fenton’s idea in spite of the fact that Marion seemed overwarm in congratulating him upon 3t iX You know there isn’t much to the town of Clay City. All one can say for it is that it contains the Plunger, one of the richest properties of the Consolidated Mining Com- pany, the operating offices of the company, the homes of the workers, and a few estab- lishments which cater to these sons of toil. The offices of the company were at the corner of the only line of buildings which could claim the description of a city block. On the inside of it was the company store; the other three sides faced the unevenly open stretches of Clay City’s streets. Op- posite that side of the office building which contained its only door was the eating house of Gus Klemos. This ramshackle edifice had long been closed to business at the moment when Fenton won his momentous decision, and it presented doors and windows that were black as moonless night and dead as dark. Yet it was to this inanimate restaurant that Bud Halliday had taken the protesting Michael Moon upon their arrival at Clay City, and there Stockbridge had joined them after a space. Thus it happened that when Fenton had entered the company offices from a street he knew to be deserted, two pairs of eyes BLUE. 569 were watching him from that black, dead house across the way, and yet another pair of eyes were sharply registering his every movement from the blackness of the alley- way which concealed Stockbridge, who had gone to watch from another angle. Having seen him enter, the watchers con- tinued in their places. By an agreement with the well-known paymaster of the Con- solidated Mines, they were awaiting the sound of a pistol shot which Bud Halliday himself was to fire. Bud waited with an excitement in his heart which was not controllable. He felt almost physically sick with the conflicting doubts which came to him. If his signal was given too soon, the common sense, practical side of his nature told him that ridicule and failure might follow; if it were given too late, then surely all was lost. And Moon lent him poor company, for he had no inkling of what it was they waited for. Meantime, within that imprisoning cage Fenton had acted out his grand stand play and won his point. It is debatable whether even he knew how quickly the dénouement was to come. Bud first saw it in the approach of a short, slight man who, having apparently dismounted in an alley, came walking furtively, close to the structures which threw deep purple shadow across the sidewalk outside the chunky of- fice building. Moon, sitting at his ease in the window of the restaurant, leaned forward eagerly as he saw this wayfarer’s approach, but Bud all but leaped through the window in his eager effort to follow the man’s movements. All unconscious of this scrutiny, the man opposite, having furtively examined the deserted streets, boldly approached the doorway of the office building and directly in front of it stood still. Bud watched him with strained eyes as he stood there, a gro- tesque figure of shadows and of night- time, fumbling with something in his hand. Then he lifted his hands to his face, and Bud saw that the something which he fum- bled was a dark bandanna handkerchief, and as they watched him the man adjusted that handkerchief across his eyes and face. “Conway!” whispered Moon; and he tugged out his gun. CcoOmiclbool CO