Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 202: what you’re looking at

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

576 the house, and I was about to speak to my father when 1] saw that he had fallen asleep. } | “Then I heard you commg. You stood in the door a moment and then—then I thought you struck my father from behind with an ax.” , ‘“ That was a terrible dream, Bill,” said Simon, looking curiously and steadily at the young man. “There was more of it. I couldn't scream—dreams are that way, you know. I thought I hid my face m the covers and that I heard you dragging something around the house. * Pretty soon I thought I heard you use the ax on something else, and that there was 2 sort of nicker from the horse— around there at the back where you were. Then you came and stood by me—I heard you, I thought, and I thought I heard Mrs, Bent, too. She was-saying she would tell if you killed me.” Bill Bent’s eyes were smokdermg again, dark fires between shaggy brows and under- hanging shadows. “A turrible dream that was, Bill,” said Simon, his red-lidded eyes ‘twitching bat never wavering in their gaze. — The sheriff’s hands were clasped loosely across. his abdomen. ‘It was a terrible dream, Simon, and i has never left me. ‘It stayed with me out among the flowers and grass on the pra rie. I never played m the dra&fy again. ‘Fhe dream stayed with me all the years I worked for you—you know I began when [ Was seven. ‘“ Sometimes I asked myself H it was a dream, and once I asked Mrs. Bent. She said it was a dream, and to forget it. I could forget other dreams, but not this one. It went with me when I ran away. It stayed with me while I fought my way to an education. “Then at nights when I was readmg law it rose up before me. [I’ve been a law- yer for a year, slaving my hfe out for a big firm. My nerves gave way—and when they went this dream came and danced be- fore my eyes again. — ‘“ Fimally I went to a specialist. I told hmm all about. my: trouble, and the dream. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. y, He made me go over it agaim and again. Then be told me to come back here and go over the scene of it. I did to-day.” Bill- Bent rose and set the sack upon the table. Simon’s eyes: followed him curiously. His hands were sunk deep in the pockets of his coat. “Sunon,” said Bill Bent, “there was something else the doctor told me. He said it was not a dream!”’ “Put up your hands, Simon—empty!”? snapped the sheriff. Two revolvers ap- peared as if by sudden magic out of no- where in the hands of that officer. Slowly the talonlike claws of Simon Bent emerped from the deep inside pockets of his coat. The red-lidded eyes still stared into the somber ones of the young man. ‘Go through him, Jack,” ordered the sheriff. Jacques’s first discovery was a "rather remarkable set of “ gum hamess.” A hol- ster, containing a short-barreled 45 catiber revolver, bung in each of the capactous pockets, supported by straps which ran be tween the outer cloth and the linme of the coat, passing im a yoke across the shoulders just where the collar would conceal its pres- ence. The holsters were wide open at the end, so that the weapons might be fired " without removing them either from the kol- ster or the pocket. ‘“ What have you got in that sack, sone” “ Half of the skull of Simon Bent’s brother—my father. And his empty old skin money-belt that refused to rot. You'll find the rest with the skeleton of the berse —the horse that Bent killed because it might have aroused suspicion against him if he had kept it or turned it leose.” The stringy fingers of Simon Bent’s hands wriggled spasmodically m the an, ~ Trke the chaws of a vulture that reaches for what it may not seize. His purplish mouth worked horribly, but he could not speak, nor could he take his eyes off the man who had wrought his undomg. - ‘A man gets his dues, sooner or later,” said the sheriff, “and today clears up several misunderstandings. So come along, now!” COM Ss Colin