The Argosy, April 1916 — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

108 care of yourself once you get away from this grove.” At once the young woman broke into a run, and in the dim radiance of the stars Danforth followed after at the best pace he could make, watching her graceful, darting presence weaving in and out_ with an admiration warm yet impersonal. She was like a fabled creature of the woods and soon vanished as mysteriously as befits such a mythical being. Left alone, Danforth plodded steadily forward along the vine-grown path, drag- ging more heavily at each step under the weight of his blankets. Now there was no sign nor sound ahead of him of the woman with whom he had made such strange ac- quaintance. He stopped and dropped to the ground to rest and consider whether it would not make his going lighter to cast away the blankets. The cool wind in the tree-tops cautioned him to think twice before doing this. Besides all the former ache in his bones and the faintness in his stomach, which the care of Mother Juliet had banished, were now coming back. How much §farther would he be able to go? The problem was then and there decided for him in a way. that left him no choice. Heavy, hurried footsteps—it might be two men, it might be four-—were pound- ing the path from the direction of the timber shed. Danforth iichied his blankets in his arms and, holding them before him as a shield, plunged into the tangled shrubbery at the side of the trail. Thorns and sharp leaves tore the flesh of his feet and arms, yet he dashed madly on into the jungle- like wood until he dropped to earth ex- hausted, his face and chest buried in the blankets. CHAPTER IX. OUTWITTED. AlON G the path with thumping feet came Michael Sands, Captain Neville’s . Superintendent, a man undersized, of ab- normally broad shoulders and abnormally long arms, every ounce of weight in his body steel of muscle. Two brawny negroes, handy men about the big house, ran lurchingly after him, crying out as they had breath to spare that THE ARGOSY. they dared go-no further because the wood was full of Mother Juliet’s snakes. At a point almost opposite the covert in which Danforth lay Sands slowed down and stopped. He mopped his face with his cap and turned round, throwing the glare of his lantern into the faces of his two assist- ants. “Boys,” he announced, ‘‘we’ll go back.” They planted themselves in their tracks like too jaded horses ready to founder. ‘Thank ye, Master Sands,” said one. “Thank ye kindly, Master Sands,” echoed the other. They both spoke with a noticeable Eng- lish intonation. Alike in build and con- forming in disposition so that they accom- plished in admirable teamwork whatever they undertook, they were known about the big house as the Brothers, except when it was necessary to distinguish them by their names of Caleb and Joshua. Of actual kinship between them there was none. “Mind you,” Sands proceeded, <“‘it’s not at all that I take any stock in the all-in- me-eye talk about snakes that can’t be kilt. The only snakes I never kilt are the ones I never shot at—or the ones I missed when I did shoot. ‘The plain reason we’re goin’ back is that we’re runnin’ round this path like a squirrel in a cage. We’re gettin’ nowhere but around, and the foul witch and mis- chief-maker has given us the slip. Back we go. Face about. March!” Returning in haste from her séance in the cottage of William Ransom, at which she had gained every point she played for, Mother Juliet still revolved in her mind the puzzling question: Who had dared to enter the hut and pull away the wardrobe from the door of the timber shed during the interval between the moment she bade the stranger good night and the moment she reentered her dwelling? She walked faster-as she pondered, when suddenly there crashed upon her ears the clang of the ship’s bell. There followed soon the sound of a loud, angry voice. An eye of light flashed its keen rays among the trees and moved quickly inward along the path to her hut. The loud, angry voice persisted, but be- came less distinct as it drew away rapidly. Mother Juliet followed it at a safe dis- Co TOO im SS C©