The Argosy, April 1916 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

116 - hight to both of them most obsequiously and pulled the door shut after her. As soon as she had gone Susan swept round to the end of the bed, caught up the sailor jacket with its bright brass buttons | and flung it viciously into the farthest cor- ner of the room by the clothes-closet. “He ought to be flogged!” she muttered, stamping her foot. “Did you really leave the jacket in the launch?” asked Miss Addison. “TI suppose I did—TI don’t know. I was so upset, you see. Rebecca and some of the men were waiting on the wharf when we came in, saying father wished to see us most urgently. Oscar simply made the boat fast and said he would return later with one of the men and fix her shipshape for the night. But why couldn’t he have left the coat in the entrance-hall on the rack, where I leave it most of the time?” “Because, my dear,’’ said Miss Addison, “he is clever enough to use a very unsus- picious means of making you feel he is thinking about you.” Susan studied Miss Addison’s serious ex- pression, then burst into hearty, girlish laughter and said: “Bless my soul, Addie, how you rave! Oscar Molle thinking of me! Why, that prim little fish wouldn’t dare!”’ Miss Addison went over to the closet to pick the sailor jacket from the floor. “Don’t touch it!”? Susan exclaimed, slip- ping in front of her. “That coat goes to one of the Settlement women first thing in the morning. I'll never wear it after this— and I’ll give it to Rebecca to dispose of, so she’ll be able to tell him if he asks her.” Nevertheless Susan did not send the - jacket to the Settlement. In the morning when she was going through the pockets to be sure she had left nothing in them she found a note pinned in an inside one. Tear- ing the paper lose, she let the jacket fall to the floor. She read the letters of foreign flourish blankly and the words rattled in her brain ~ like peas in a box, as she tried to compre- hend all they might mean. Why have you for so long persistently pretended not to know how much you mean to me? I have been always, as it were, bound by chains to you, to go where you wish, to do what you wish done. I have even gone so far as to obey you when you are dealing with your father’s bitter and _dangerous enemies, at least one of them. I do this because I cannot help myself, THE ARGOSY. it is true, and my reward is your pretense that you do not know, and the insults of your father that no man would endure ex- cept me—and for your sake. I have long been patient. How long I can continue to be patient even I do not know. Have pity on me and believe me, Your all-devoted, O. M. CHAPTER XII. TRAITOR! WHO? Alt that night Overseer William Ran- som slept peacefully on his false oath and dreamed of the ten thousand dollars re- ward for the man who had been put to sea in an open boat some hundred miles off Twin Island. This was chiefly due to the fact that he had an exceptionally retentive memory. Having read two or three times the tran- script of the wireless with which Oscar Molle had provided him, the words of it fol- lowed one another again and again in his mind precisely as they were written, and yet with no particular purpose or intention on his part. At nine the next morning the overseer, Jake Haas and Sailor Pete marched at the head of the Settlement brigade—between twenty-five and thirty men in all—to the little plaza in front of the big house. They were received by Captain Neville and all his household pleasantly and with dignity. William Ransom stepped forward about twenty paces from the ranks, saluted the captain and said: “If you please, Captain Neville, sir, here we are from the Settlement, according to your orders, which we mean to obey all of them like this one.” “Thank you, William Ransom and men of the Settlement,” the captain responded, a slight huskiness in his voice. “It does every drop of blood in my heart good to see you come here like upstanding men—and it’s one of the great joys in a seaman’s life, let me explain, to have his crew before him fac- ing front, fearless and loyal. ‘‘After all, the island is much like a ship. It needs men, and one man to manage those men and the ship. I don’t think you can fairly call me a hard master. You came here of your own free will; you earn enough for you and those of you who have wives to live on and something over. You can’t spend that surplus here, but you have the record of it kept in your own account-books by William Ransom, and you can draw it MICLOOOKS (C@