Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

94 hair on his neck bristled. Trained neither | to growl nor bark, he stood listening and savage. “A pinch,” said Billy inaudibly, and on tiptoes he began edging toward a table drawer; but Jerry took hold of his arm and gestured arrestingly. They plainly heard the door from the hallway click as it closed softly. With lip-movement and gestures Jerry was saying to the dog— “Down—down—down, you devil; down!”’ They heard light footfalls in the next room. Billy pulled himself inch by inch to the table and took a big automatic from the drawer, thrusting it under the flap of his coat. The door opened slowly. Billy. stood sidewise, the gun leveled behind the flap of the coat which he would have thrown back as he shot; but he felt himself grow weak, and the point of, the gun drooped. Jerry drew up a sigh that filled the room and shifted his feet uneasily. Even the dog seemed a little disconcerted, and the menace went out of its attitude as he stood watchful, curious, interested. A) THE woman looked about with gee; studied unconcern, even insolence. She was sure Of herself, unan- swerable to anybody, and carried herself like a savage princess entering her own rooms instead of a strange apartment. It was evident that she had not expected to find any one, but it was also evident that she did not greatly care. She was alive from the sharp little toes of her brightly buckled slippers to fur turban on which a carbuncle blazed. The dark eyes flashed imperiously. silly’s first thought was that the door had been unlocked and she had made a mistake, entering the )wrong apartment; but he saw that she knew where she was. His wonder was astonishment. Jerry Peete breathed heavily. The woman scrutinized them sharply, but with an air of indifference. She was as straight as a young pine-tree, and disdain for ordinary mortals such as these two fairly shimmered from her. Billy, ever alertly observant of beauty, realized that she was about the prettiest thing under heaven and that she seemed to know it. Her features were almost artificially perfect, like a cameo’s, and it Adventure was easy to understand why she treated every man as a slave. The early Autumn midnight had a slight chill. Her sable sack, fashioned—to em- phasize the squareness of her shoulders— with a semi-military collar, held her chin up with a suggestion of aloof pride, of chal- lenging hauteur. But Billy the Dude did not suffer stage- fright if beauty’s shock had been a little severe—even on his impudence; but he eased the gun around to his hip pocket and said heartily: “Come right in an’ make youseself t’ home. We don’t get your message ’r we’d been to de train. It’s a pleasure—I’ll tell the worl’! An’ anyt’ing youse say, goes. Jus’ spill it.” It was beneath her to answer such im- pertinence. She turned her face toward Jerry and said— “When Black Wolf comes do not tell him I am here.” Jerry repressed a groan as he bowed humbly. He believed that all women and some cats, black ones, brought bad luck; but Jerry was not easily rattled. As he straightened up with a most butleresque air he said soberly as the owl he somewhat resembled— “The name I shall not give him is?” “Mine,” she answered at once with an upward tilt of her chin. Jerry bowed humbly, imperturbably, asking— “You are?” “Leela Cabron.”’ She said it proudly, self-consciously, sure of herself, as one who knows her own importance. Billy the Dude straightened up with re- newed interest. His quick fingers auto- matically touched his hair, patted down his tie, hitched up his trousers; and, dropping a hand in each side-pocket, he swaggered a bit as he regarded the noted ‘char- acter—renowned for her beauty and for her temper. “Yes, Miss Cabron.”’ Jerry was bowing again. “Will you be seated. I can not say what time he will return.” She ignored him. She ignored Billy. She went straight to the wolfhound, kneeled with a certain impetuous, heedless air, and took the dog’s long head between her gloved hands. Go NOOK = a (C@