Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 16, 1921 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE. Here he was interrupted quite abruptly by the sight of a blue revolver pointed at his head from the open French window that gave access to the balcony. “Put up your hands, all of you,” urged Dave Thornton. “ Back away from the table to the other side of the room.”’ They did so—Pedro and Manuel and Calbuco and the alcalde and another man. Walstrom and Quensel uttered a forceful oath and sat still. They were by no means afraid. Moreover, the intruder did not seem to be looking at them. “ Fifty dollars, Calbuco.” Dave moved cautiously forward to the table. “That’s what you owe me for one month’s work. Ill collect it myself from your pile, see?” Watching them the while, Dave sorted out with his fingers a number of silver dol- lars and bank-notes. - The stout alcalde spluttered something in Spanish about thieves. “Keep your hands up like I said, Spig- gotty,’”’ Dave advised him. ‘ Now, Cal- buco, you lied to me. You robbed an American citizen of his gun. That’s right, ain’t it? Well, I’m telling you that you have a lot more coming to you. Don’t for- get that. Stop wiggling your hands, Pedro —TI ain’t talking to you.” Dave pocketed the money and moved back toward the window. “Tell your friends to turn around, Cal- buco, and look at the wall. You do it, too.”’ Walstrom and Quensel looked at each other and grinned involuntarily. There was something humorous in the sight of five grown men plastered against the wall. When they glanced at Dave again they saw only the double windows closing softly. Pedro’s knife hurtled across the room and through a glass pane. The Chilean was not a coward. Drawing a revolver, he slipped to the window and looked out into the darkness. Manuel darted from the room toward the stairs. The alcalde, after a discreet inter- val, left to summon his police. Calbuco wiped his brow; then he smiled. - that opened upon the balcony. 27 “He will not get away, gentlemen. It will be impossible for him to leave Punta if he escapes from the house. He is a fool. You heard him threaten me?” “He seemed,” acknowledged Walstrom, who had no great fancy for Calbuco’s type, and had been forced to pay high for his * peons, ‘“ to mean what he said.” The Norwegians noticed that the woman was no longer sobbing. A moment later Senorita Clara Bruce was startled when she saw the dark figure of a.man enter the window of her room The night had brought real fear upon her—a fear that ‘was no less real because she could not put it into words. She had not been able to see her father. Instead, she was locked in her room and the wife of Calbuco had scolded her. Cal- buco himself had told her that John Bruce was drinking; that he was a dishonest man; and that she must help them to make him give up some mine he had stolen. It was quite a surprise to discover that the man who had come into her room in the dark was the young American she had met on the schooner, and Clara stopped crying, to huddle down farther into the bed- clothes. ‘Listen here,” said Dave in a whisper, “you got to get outer here. I'll take you to your old man. They’re keeping you here to make him give in to them. Under- stand?” Whimpering, Clara admitted that she did not. She asked him, uncertainly, to leave the room. ‘““T can’t,” said Dave truthfully. “ Any- way, you hurry up and dress. I'll be over . by the window and I can’t see nothing in the dark. Hurry.” . Peering, out through the shutters, he could make out men passing back and forth along the balcony and lights bobbing in front of the house. Presently the balcony was quiet and the lights moved out into the plaza as the pursuit drew further afield. ‘You know where the back stairs is, don’t you?” he grunted. ‘“ Well, come along. Oh—rats, don’t worry. I’m taking you to a priest.” Gripping ‘her slim hand in his, he moved Go NOOK = A (©