Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

: approached the radius of the lights. Her interview with Allan pused in her an intense desire to set tee by any means, fair or foul. the revelry in the dance hall was reach- its climax. None of the sensible work- rs Who sought only mild recreation re- mained. No one that was even half sober was in the place now. The tin-panny piano Whanged, a fiiddle screeched, a trombone blared. Heavy feet scuffed the floor, drunk- _ €n laughter boomed, the shrill cries of aban- _ doned women cut through the hideous din of the riotous night. Outside an occasional sinister figure slithered through the darkness like a prowling wolf. But it was not of the danger that men- aced a lone woman on every hand that Alice thought. A new and terrible idea was sizzling in her brain. Those men in the Lone Star! She had Swayed the men of Geyser once; had moved them by the power of her voice and per- sonality to do what she wanted them to do. Could she repeat the performance? Obviously the Lone Star revelers were in the mood for mischief. Could she inspire them to real deviltry? Could she make them do a lawless thing? Could she per- suade them to raid Jim Harper’s jail and liberate the man she loved? She played with the thought as a child plays with fire. The law had cheated and tricked her; why should she not trick and cheat the law? m Sue felt suddenly that she could do it: that she could enter that sink hole of in- iquity and move the reckless men there to do her bidding. A sense of power welled up within her. Why not use her power? Allan was guiltless of any wrongdoing, and yet, through the power of circumstan- tial evidence and the technique of the law makes one partner liable for the wrong- y of the other he would probably have end long years in prison. But she ave him from it. ner mind was made up. She il resort and entered it. s oily smile spread \RGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. half so welcome’ my offer. You have come to me at last! ** Sherrard,” Alice snapped, “I want y to do me a favor. I Want to talk to a men. Will you let me?” = Sherrard made a Sweeping bow, ; “ My dearest girl,” he said, “ the place is yours.” VII. THERE was a little stage at the end of the dancing floor and it was toward this, under Sherrard’s leadership, that Alice made her Way. She paid no attention to the fact that. in merely setting foot inside a resort of this nature, a respectable woman endangered her reputation. Sights that at Other times would have sent her scurrying out of any such place made no impression on her now. She brushed against painted women that she had shrunk from on the Street as though they were afflicted with leprosy and the contact affected her not at all. Blasphe- mous ejaculations and lewd phrases reached her ears, but did not register on her mind. Leering looks went unnoticed. Sherrard’s significant phrase, ‘‘ my dearest girl,” car- ried no sinister meaning to her single-pur- posed mind. She thought of only one thing: she had unwittingly delivered the man she loved into the hands of the law and she proposed to brew a storm of disorder and lawlessness that would set him free. The possibility that she herself might be engulfed in such a storm did not occur to her any more than the thought of a holocaust occurs to a child who strikes matches. On the platform Sherrard held up his hand and demanded attention, and in a moment he secured it. “ Men,” he shouted with no more regard for the women in his employ than if they were pins in his bowling alley, “ this little girl wants to talk to you, and I want you to listen. You know who she is: she's the sweet-faced kid that mails your alimony to your ex-wife when you don't want to do it yourself. You may have got the im- pression that she’s a stuck-up sister who considers herself too good to play around ~ comicbooks.com