Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

THE WHISPERER. What actually happened, at any rate, was that shortly after midnight the household of Joe Gregory wakened with a scream tingling in their ears. With one accord those inside the house and the guarding cowboys outside, rushed for the room of Jack Tucker. Ugly Joe himself called out a challenge and then was the first to enter, a lantern in one hand and a revolver in the other. Behind him came his wife, Patricia, and then Goggles, his lean, trembling limbs wrapped in a dressing-gown of linen, stamped with a pattern of gay Japanese flowers. They found Jack Tucker lying face downward in a rapidly widening pool of blood. As they turned him on his back they found that he had been stabbed three times in the breast, each wound enough to cause death. His own jack-knife was still gripped in his hand, showing that he had died fighting, and not, at least, surprised from behind. There was still a lingering life in him. ‘When he opened his eyes the first thing that they encountered was the horrified - face of Patricia leaning close above him. His lips writhed, parted, and he said: ““‘You—come next—he—told me.” “Told you that she—that the girl— comes next?’ cried Goggles, in horror, and he leaned close to the dying man. Tucker screamed, struck at the face above him, and died. | CHAPTER XI. THE FOLLY OF WOMEN. ATRICIA, heart-sick and weak, did Pp not wait to help care for the body of the dead man, but went back to her room. Ugly Joe stopped at her door a moment later to say that he had placed eight men on guard instead of four and that there would be no more trouble that night, at least. The next day he would take her to Eagles. Nevertheless, she arranged the lamp on the little table at the head of her bed, so that by striking a match she could have a light in a second. The wick of: the lamp was turned high, and she made sure that 463 the supply of oil was high. After that she lay in the dark, certain that she would Stay awake until the dawn. But the very violence of the succession of grim pictures which passed across her mind wearied her. Her last consciousness was that of shifting the revolver under her pillow so that it would be easier to grasp. When she woke again it was with the suffocating consciousness that there was an- other living, breathing presence in the room. It struck upon her as vividly as a flood of light. the dark eyes were upon her. She was as conscious of it as a man may be of the sound of his beating heart, though that may be audible to no ear but his own. At length she made it out—not a shape or any suggestion of a form—it was merely a certain lightening of the utter black near the window and toward the corner of the room. It did not move, but she knew. And then Patricia was glad, very glad, for there was no fear in her. She was per- fectly. calm, her hand perfectly steady as she drew out the revolver steadily, softly, from beneath the pillow. She had never ‘been so happy in her life, for she knew that She was meeting a test from which the Strongest of brave men might have shrunk. She was about to meet the Whisperer face to face. ) It must be understood, in order to follow what Patricia did next, that the little table rose almost a foot above the level of the bed. When the lamp on it. was lighted, therefore, a thick shadow fell directly on the bed, though the rest of the room -and particularly the ceiling, was well lighted. First she flattened herself on the bed—next she trained the revolver on the gray shadow of the corner. Finally she took a match, scratched it, lighted the lamp—and then gripped the revolver hard, her finger on the trigger. All that could have been seen of her, indeed, would have been the first flash of the light on her hand and wrist as she lighted the lamp. Instantly afterward she was lost‘in the black shadow which swam across the bed, in waves, because the un- Sheltered flame from the lamp-wick tossed up and down. - But what Patricia saw in the corner of COLL ElOO® She knew that from somewhere in - (CO