Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE TRAIL OF A MYSTERY. 15 ter between «my knees. As the wife glanced curiously at me, | removed my derby and said: “ Good evening, Mrs. Auckland ; I am glad to see you! ”’ Without replying, she looked again at Peters, who had also sat down, crossed his muscular legs, and placed his slouch hat over one knee. The movement of his heavy beard showed he was smiling, as he calmly met her gaze, but he did not speak. “I ’spose it was you that give Tom his hurt? ”’ added the wife, who showed no hurry to look after her wounded husband. “ Dunno whether it was me or Dick Warman; I aimed the best I knowed how, but it mought have been Dick that plugged his hoss and winged Tom.” “ And what did you do, Tom? ” asked the wife, turning angrily upon her hus- band. “ Dropped Dick Warman in his tracks,” was the proud reply. “And who’s this lily faced young lady in man’s clothes that you’ve fetched into the house? ” continued the woman with a scornful glance at me. “ Hold on there, Becky! I'll own he looks a good deal like a dude, but he’s got sand; if it hadn’t been for him, Zach would’ve dropped me, dead sure.” | “That’s so,” heartily assented Mr. Peters, “and it was him that got the drop on me, and which the same he fetched me in here as a prisoner of war.” “TI don’t believe a word of it!” said the woman, dropping into the chair, as if some one had struck her on the crown with a mallet, her thin lips compressed and her gray eyes flashing. The husband now deemed it best at this point to give an account of the hos- tile meeting already described, doing so in his characteristic fashion. Peters helped him along by an occa- sional nod of his head and the exclama- tion, ‘‘ That’s so!” while I, as was be- coming, held my peace, and once or Zach. twice blushed, as is fitting for a mod- est man when he hears himself praised. CHAPTER V. A STORMY RECORD. THERE could be no mistaking the meaning of the glances which Mrs. Becky Auckland shot toward Zach Peters during the course of her hus- band’s narrative. Never was more deadly hatred concentrated in a look, and I half expected her to leap to my side, snatch up the Winchester, and shoot the prisoner dead. The bitterest, fiercest, most merciless partisans in those mountain feuds were the women. “Come, wife, let’s have supper,” was the strange wind up of Tom Auck- land’s story. Without a word, the woman rose to her feet and began preparing the meal of hominy, bacon, coarse bread, and coffee. When it was ready, we drew up our chairs, and Tom Auckland bowed his head, closed his eyes, and asked one of the most touching “ bless- ings” to which I have ever listened. There had been a pause long enough to permit his wife to dress and bandage his wound, which was more trifling than either one of us had suspected. In- deed, the numbness of the muscles had passed almost entirely away, and Tom announced that on the morrow at the latest he would be as ready as ever to act his part in the feud as a partisan of the Baker clan. It need not be said that throughout the incidents I have described, I kept up a big amount of thinking, and was busy speculating over the outcome of the series of curious adventures in which I had unexpectedly become in- volved. In the first place, the remark of Zach Peters proved that he knew something about the fate of Dick Montgomery, who had vanished from the*knowledge of men as utterly and completely as if lost in the depths of the Sut GOOOKS COM