The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

FLIRTING WITH DESPERATE HAZARD. jerked from their sockets, so violent was the tug given his elbows by the ab- rupt halt of his two guards. “ That’s it—now let that guy free!” What—was he dreaming? Lewis doubted the evidence of his ears, on which, he would have sworn, those blessed words had actually fallen from the lips of the fat man on the detect- ive’s other side. And then he felt the grip of his two captors relax. Their hands slipped slowly off his sleeves—and Lewis was free. Yet he must be only imagining this. Momentarily stunned by the turn things had taken, he still stood between the police officers, waiting to wake up, as it was inevitable he should in a second or two. He glanced out. of the corner of his eye at Sergeant O’Malley on his left. And an involuntary gasp escaped the reporter. The copper was standing like a gra- ven image, arms rigid at his sides, neck stiff, staring fixedly straight before him. Beads of moisture had formed on his brow. On his face there rested an ex- pression of absolutely pea-green fright. Why—what ailed the man? Looking quickly around at Inspector Flinch, Lewis’s mystification deepened. The detective stood in precisely the same wooden pose of his assistant. But there was not the same look on the in- spector’s countenance that O’Malley wore. ‘The detective’s expression so far transcended the sergeant’s look of petrified terror that there was no com- parison between them. Only men in the fear of death itself could look and act as these two— A glimpse of something shining against the small of the detéctive’s back caught’ Lewis’s eye just then. The something, he knew the second after, was a pistol—a pistol in the hand of the stout stranger. Its muzzle, pressing against the in- spector’s spine, was what held htm mo- tionless with that mask of white-lipped, straining fear on his features. 121 Well—O’Malley, a swift glance over his shoulder informed the reporter, stood, too, with a glinting revolver stuck against his backbone by the man ranged alongside of him—here were both of his guards as helpless as he had been a moment since! ““ Now, here’s your orders!” The fat man spoke. His tone was quiet, and not in the least unpleasant. “You two move right on up this alley—see? And no looking back once you get started. In case you don’t think we mean business, why—try so much as a peep out of the corner of your eye before you’ve gone a full fifty yards. You'll both be dead men next minute. Understand?” “ This prisoner,” O’Malley began. “ We'll take care of him,” the stout stranger interrupted. His broad coun- tenance was grimly set. “ Now—walk right on ahead. Fifty yards, and no lookin’ back. We shoot at the first shady move.” And the two officers, without an- other word, started forward. Walking side by side, stiff-backed, lifting and lowering their feet with automatic pre- cision, they moved up the alley like a pair of overgrown, obedient schoolboys. At last Lewis relaxed his attitude. He lowered his stiffened arms from the front of his coat with a sigh of relief, turning toward his rescuers. He knew who these men Were now— it had been stupid of him not to guess their identity long before. This was the relief expedition Bren- nant must have sent out to save him, after all. Good old Brennant—he hadn’t forgotten him, left him to wrig- gle out of the hole he had got into on the paper’s behalf the best way he could by himself. The city editor was right on the job. These men he had hired to go after the reporter and drag him from the latter’s guards the first minute they had a chance to do it without attracting a crowd—why, they had been engaged for the undertaking with a quickness that aroused Lewis’s admiration. oO CoOMmicbook CO