Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

- anything,” gS the whole thing. When I detailed that they produce you, they bound me hand and foot, and I should have been murdered there in the tent if Carter hadn’t come in and cut my bonds just as you arrived.’ “Who would believe it possible,” Ward shuddered, ‘‘that a woman could be ‘such a fiend?” “I believe that Mrs. Herriot is capable of declared Blayden. ‘“‘Unfor- tunately now, she is my sister-in-law. - She and Stephen were married as soon as _ Greiner discovered them.”’ “And what are you going to do with _ them?” Ward asked. _“T have agreed not to prosecute, provided __ Stephen will take a position with my com- _ pany in South America and take his wife - with him. They have submitted to the in- evitable. We will not see them again.” “And the others of the gang—are you going to let them go, too?” “Ves; it would not be fair to punish them and allow the instigators of their crimes to _go free. They have all agreed to leave this part of the country.” ““And so,” mused Ward, “‘that ends it all.” Otto Blaydon glanced at him sharply. _ “T guess that depends on you, doesn’t it?” he demanded. Fenton flushed scarlet at the tone, and the look. “T—I don’t understand,” he stammered. The older man placed an affectionate _ hand upon his arm. _ “Ward,” he said gently. fond of Nellie, aren’t you?” _ “T Jove her more than I thought I should ever love any woman.” “But, Conway tells me that you think I would object to you because you do not happen to have earned quite as large a for- tune as the Blaydons have.” Ward did not answer. _ “Tf you think that,” Blaydon pursued, “remember that I did not earn that fortune either. My father made it. And what the - Blaydons need now in the family is not more money but more manhood.” Fenton could find no words to reply. “And when it comes to real manhood,” Otto Blaydon continued, his eyes glowing, “T am willing to tell you that you are an example that I should thank God to wel- come into my family.”’ | “But—but,” Ward objected, “Miss Nel- lie may not feel the same way about it.”’ “You're very 7 _down to him. Adventure Otto Blaydon sprang to his feet with a laugh That I refuse to find out for you,’ said. * he “You will have to ask her yourself.” © 2) THE brilliant half-disk of a first- ig és quarter moon hung low in the sky a=’ over Sunken Island Creek as Ward Fenton, now almost recovered, and Nellie — Blaydon walked down the steps from the lawn to the boat-landing on the edge of Round Bay. Under the rustic top of the Summer-house, on the end of the little wharf to which the Blaydons moored their pleas- ure craft, they took seats on a bench, and gazed for a long time in silence down the path of moonlight that shimmered across the waves. “(Do you remember the last moon?” the girl asked at length. Ward laughed easily. “Tl forget it if you want me to,” he promised. ‘You see, I haven’t asked any questions yet.”’ “You have been wonderful—wonderful,” she said, her voice full of boundless admira- tion. “You have not even asked me about the telephone.”’ “Oh, I suppose you thought I was one of the crooks,’ ” he laughed. “T thought you were from Mrs. Herriot,” she nodded. “TI thought she had sent you to find out something about father. Uncle Stephen was in New York at the time, making the arrangements that father has told you about, but I was afraid that if she knew he was there she would find out. what he was doing. So, on the spur of the mo- ment, I conceived the telephone trick, and told you it was my mneesage to Chicago that caught him.” ‘And that moonlight night?” he asked. “It was the night I received the message, saying she was coming at once to Sea View. Uncle Stephen was at the camp down the shore—I knew he would want to know at once, so I hired a fast launch and went I knew very little about fa- ther’s supposed engagement at that time, you know, and practically nothing of the plan that he and Uncle Stephen formed, except that Mrs. Herriot was to be con- vinced that father had been drowned. “Father told me to follow Uncle Ste- phen’s instructions in everything. I did so without protest, though I loathed the part he compelled me to play. But when he told com 200) “S (E(9)