Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

112 JOHN WYNDHAM prowled silently round the glade, with an arrow nocked on the string. I found nothing, but it helped me to keep awake. After a couple of hours or so Michael came through. ‘‘ Where are you now? ”’ I explained as well as I knew. “Where are you heading? ”’ he wanted to know. ‘‘ South-west,” I told him. ‘‘ We’re going to move by sige and lie up by day.” He approved of that,-but, ‘“‘ The devil of it is that with this Fringes trouble there'll be a lot of patrols about. I don’t know that Rosalind was very wise about those greathorses. If you’re seen at all, word will go round like wildfire—even your tracls will be enough. ‘There’s hell to pay over this. ‘They must have been much more certain and much more worried than we thought. They’re going to send posses after you. ‘* I’m going to volunteer for one of them. Meanwhile, I'll plant a report of your having been seen making south-east. When that peters out we'll have another ready to take them north-west. If anyone sees you, do your best to stop him getting away. But don’t shoot. ‘There’s an order out not to use guns except when neces- sary, and to investigate all gun shots.” I had deliberately decided against taking a gun, on account of the noise; besides, they are slow to load, and if you run out of powder they are useless. Arrows haven’t the range, but are silent, and you can get a dozen of them off while a man is reloading a gun. Everybody laid off projecting. I kept my watch for another hour, and then woke Rosalind for her turn. Petra did not stir. I lay down beside her, and was asleep in a couple of minutes. Perhaps I was sleeping uneasily, or perhaps it was just a coinci- dence that I woke to catch an anguished thought from Rosalind. ‘“ T’ve killed him, Michael He’s quite dead.”’ And then a chaotic, panicky thought-shape. Michael came in, steady and reassuring. ‘‘ Don’t be scared, Rosalind. You had to. This is war between our kind and theirs. You mustn’t be frightened, Rosalind; it was necessary.” I looked round the glade. Petra lay still sleeping beside me; the greathorses were peacefully cropping the grass. Michael came in again. ‘“‘ Hide him, Rosalind. Find a hollow, and pile leaves over him.” A pause. Then Rosalind, without panic now, but deeply dis- tressed, agreeing. Presently she appeared among the bushes, walking slowly, clean- ing an arrow on a tuft of grass as she came. ‘What happened? ”’ I asked. She did not seem able to get a proper hold over her thought- shapes, she was distressed and chaotic. When she came nearer she used words instead, ‘‘ It was a man. He had found the trail of the horses, and he was following them. I—I didn’t want to, but what else could I do?” She began to cry. I put my arm round her and tried to comfort comiclooks.conn