The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

52 He felt like himself again. He went to the table and read Hilairy’s letter. It was a simple, sweet letter, about her coming to him, and now it seemed so beautiful he could have wept over it. He wanted her as never before in his life. By taking the train next morning he could reach her before she left to join him. He could not bear to send her any word; he wanted to see her and make her under- stand. So he did not try to sleep any more that night. He played his Handel a while, re- read Hilairy’s letter, and started for the railroad station. He felt excited and strangely happy. He was in such a frame of mind that he could not believe in any sort of unhappy ending; he was sure that he would come out of that trial ahead of him triumphant over the law. It was the law of fools. Yet the district attorney was not a fool. And in his eyes one whom the law con- demned was a lost man. It was on Saturday morning that Lord found himself again in the district of Mc- Rae’s authority. Broad day! Still, he was not arrested. No one seemed to recognize him, no one had him in mind, any more. Schwartz had been hanged; the man with the small head was in jail awaiting the brief, cere- monial trial that would seal his fate. Peo- ple had accepted the probability that the other two bandits would never be taken. From his window in the passenger coach, Lord saw Robertson’s ranch and that corn- field in which he had once been apprehend- ed by a dog. It was now June. The sky bent over the earth a luminous breast of white clouds shot with blue. And through the rest of the blue, sunlight danced and flickered like the lights in Hilairy’s eyes. As the mother sky embraced the earth it seemed that every spark of life must be precious—even the life of the wicked. Lord left the train at a flag-station not far from Millico—he wished to see Hilairy before surrendering. As he walked across the prairie toward the little town where she was at work, he came across a coyote trap THE ARGOSY. that might have been the same one from which he had once set the victim free. Meadowlarks were blowing silver trumpets everywhere, shouting faith in the ultimate joy of all the earth. Looking westward, he could locate the tar-papered shack on that claim to which Hilairy had come a long while before with her dying brother in a passionate, last at- tempt to save him. Lord remembered how, when he heard of that pilgrimage, he had resolved to follow, also to earn a great deal of money to help her. So he had come to Kahokia with a road show. And in an evil hour, what misery he had brought on her! _ He walked through the one street of the little town -wheéfe Hilairy played for a motion-picture theater and acted as accompanist for the road shows. Nobody recognized him. He went to the boarding- house and the landlady showed no surprise at sight of him. At last he stood waiting for Hilairy in a dingy little parlor. That very day she was to have given up her po- sition to leave for Canada. He heard her step on the stairs and her voice, singing Tosti’s ‘‘ Good-by.” She had a soprano that might have amounted to something if the money for training it had not been spent on her brother. Her voice came nearer: “Hark a voice—”’ She broke off with a little cry; she had seen him from the hall. He could not see her for a mist before him. But he held out his arms. When they were around her— “‘T had to come back, Hilairy: I'll tell you about it in—in a minute. It’s going to be all right, now; perfectly all right,” he murmured ecstatically. CHAPTER IX. FACING DOOM. McRae was not doing hard work pre- paratory to trying the man with the small head. His guilt was too obvious, his fate inevitable. He swore he had been in- timidated by Rawley Lord, who had cov- comicbool< CO