Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

eee wie? i 152 surprise written large on her countenance. Pure art, of course, and she did it remark- ably well. “Why, Tom,” she breathed, “I wasn’t expecting this. I didn’t dream, I——” “That’s all right,’ Loudon broke in. “T’m tellin’ ye I love ye, honey. Will ye ‘ wait for me? Ye don’t have to say ye love me. IJ’ll take a chance on yore lovin’ me later. Just say ye'll wait, will ye, honey?” - _ “Oh, Tom, I can’t!” “Ye can’t! Why not? Don’t love any- body else, do ye?” “Oh, I can’t, Tom,” evaded Kate. “I don’t think I could ever love you. I like you—oh, a great deal. You're a dear boy, Tommy, but—you can’t make yourself love any one.” “Ve won’t have to make yoreself. I'll make ye love me. Just give me a chance, honey. That’s all I want. I’d be good to ye, Kate, an’ I’d spend my time tryin’ to ‘make ye happy. We’d get along. I know we would. Say yes. Give me a-chance.” Kate returned to the table and leaned against it, arms at her sides, her hands gripping the table-edge. It was a pose cal- culated to display her figure to advantage. She had practised it frequently. Kate Sal- toun was running true to form. “Tom,” she said, her voice low and ap- pealing, “Tom; I never had any idea you loved me. And I’m awfully sorry I can’t love you. Truly, I am. But we can be friends, can’t we?” “Friends! Friends!” The words were like a curse. “Why not?” Loudon, head lowered, looked at her un- der his eyebrows. “Then it all didn’t mean nothin’?” spoke with an effort. “All? All what? What do you mean?” “Ye know what I mean. You’ve been awful nice tome. Ye always acted like ye enjoyed havin’ me around. An’ I thought ye liked me—a little. An’ it didn’t mean nothin’ ’cept we can be friends. Friends!’ Again the word sounded like a curse. Loudon turned his head and stared unsee- ingly out of the window. He raised his hand and pushed his hair back from his forehead, A great misery was in bis heart. Kate, for once in her life swayed by honest impulse, stepped seEwarS and laid a hand on his arm. He Adventure “Don’t take it so hard, Tom,” she beg- ged. Loudon’s eyes slid ’round and gazed down into her face. Kate was a remarkably handsome girl, but she had never appeared so alluring as she did at that moment. Loudon stared at the vivid dark eyes, | the parted lips, and the tilted chin. Her warm breath fanned his neck. The moment was tense, fraught with possibilities, and— Kate smiled. Even a bloodless cucumber would have been provoked. And Loudon was far from being a cucumber. His long arms swept out and about her body, and he crushed her gasping against his chest. Once, twice, three times he kissed her mouth, then, his grasp relaxing, she wrenched herself free and staggered back against the table. Panting, hands clenched at her throat, she faced him. Loudon stood swaying, his great frame trembling. “Kate! oh, Kate!’’ he cried, and stretched out his arms. But Kate groped her dazed way around the table. Physically and mentally, she had been severely shocked. To meet a tor- nado where one had expected a Summer breeze is rather shattering to one’s poise. Quite so. Kate suffered. Then, out of the chaos of her emotions, erupted wild anger. “You! You!” she hissed. “How dare you kiss me! Ugh-h! I could kill you!” She drew the back of her hand across her mouth and snapped her hand downward with precisely the same snap and jerk that a Mexican bartender employs when he flips the pulque from his fingers. “Do you know I’m engaged to Sam Blakely? What do you think he’ll do when he finds this out? Do you understand? I’m going to marry Sam Blakely!” This facer cooled Loudon as nothing else could have done. Outwardly, at least, he became calm. “T didn’t understand, but I do now,” he said, stooping to recover his hat. “If you’d told me that in the first place it would have saved trouble.” “‘You’d have been afraid to kiss me then!”’ she taunted. “Not afraid,” he corrected gently. “I wouldn’t ’a’ wanted to. I ain’t kissin’ an- other man’s girl.” “No, I guess not! The nerve of you! Think I’d marry an ignorant puncher!” “Ye sure ain’t goin’ to marry this one, |)? but ye are goin’ to marry a cow-thief! Eomichbooks (EO)