Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

THE BIRD OF PASSAGE. ing to Mexico he was romancing; he had no more intention of going to that poverty- ridden country than he had of going to Labrador. | York was the place for Johnny—or Chi, but there were certain obstacles to be over- come, chiefly that of finding the right per- son to educate the boy. When he found himself with the lad in his possession the old man had announced that they would at once strike for York, but two detectives took a man out of a lodging house under the very eyes.of the Professor, and the sight of that threw him into such a panic that he re- nounced at once the idea of going in per- son to the great metropolis. Instead he would wait until he ran across the right sort of a man, and in the meantime there were still some late county fairs running and still some money to be made in the carnival business. In exactly one week after he had lost the boy, Springtime ran upon a scent so warm that he could stop for a half day and figure out a plan of campaign. The three had traveled in a circle, so that at the end of that week, they were within thirty miles of Snug Harbor. Gahagan was at his old trick of wrestling; Springtime’s informant had seen him, and had also seen the old man, but did not know just what his graft was aside from ballyhooing for the wres- tling. The effort of keeping his mind on the chase had made Springtime morose and thin. He watched himself like a hawk, and when- ever he found his attention wandering, he scourged himself as a medieval saint might have done. But always at the end of such a painful session, he registered a solemn vow that if he were successful in this quest never, never again would he undertake any- thing that had the slightest shade of re- sponsibility attached to it. The rest of his life he would drift like a piece of seaweed. In the late morning of a Saturday he landed in the county seat, where Gahagan was performing. There was a fair at the grounds, and although, after he had pon- dered a half hour, Springtime had found no better plan of operation than to march up to the two and demand Johnny, he set out for the park at once. In his journey 205 through the city, the name of which he found was Napoleon, he kept to the back streets and alleys, so that there would be no embarrassing encounters with constables, who at this joyous season, would be on the alert for any hangers-on whom they might ‘“‘ shake down.”’ And as he marched up an alley that tan between substantial houses, he stopped with his head up, as dead still as a pointer scenting birds. A smell had reached him—a delicious smell, a combination of fruits and spice and hot pastry. It was that delicious aroma which has no equal the world over, the smell of mince pies just out of the oven. Cautiously the wanderer looked about to locate the game and saw it sitting on the window sill of a respectable house which he had just passed. The pies were cooling on the window sill, tipped slightly outward, so that he could see*the delicate brown of the crust and the little pine trees pricked into them to allow the steam to escape. Springtime ran his eye over the place with his instinct sharpened to needle fine- ness. He wanted some of that pie more than he had ever wanted food in his life. It was a rather old-fashioned place, painted bright yellow, with white trim and much lacy woodwork up in the eaves. He noted that the paint was fresh, that the heavy clumps of shrubbery in the corners of the big yard had been pruned recently, that the lawn and paths were geometrically correct and unbelievably neat, and that the fence was as straight as a taut cord without a missing or a broken picket. Spotlessly clean windows, plus this other evidence, told him that it would be a very hard house tozyork. But he had not eaten a single real meal since he had set out on the trail of the abductors and he needed a bodyful of nourishing food before he went up against the wrestler. What little money he had he must save, so that in case he was injured he would have something to live on while recovering. No matter what form the fight took, it was sure to be a hard one, and even if he were beaten it would be better to go down with a full stomach than an empty one. If Springtime had a reputation for any- thing, above his remarkable ability to cover comicboooks C©