Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

= ¥, WE f ' . 746 plexedly. “Say, do you know, ever since the sandstorm I’ve forgotten all about it. “ Now, what do you make out of that?” He grinned sheepishly. “ I’ve heard of peo- ple being scared out of a year’s growth; but this is the first time I ever knew of it going to the feet.” Whatever the reason, though—whether the hot sand through which he had been walking had allayed the inflammation, or whether exercise had snapped a dislocated joint back into place the pain and soreness were all gone. He proved this by lightly shuffling a few dance steps. But now Faith objected to being left alone. The sun was setting, and darkness would soon be upon them. A tenderfoot like himself, she pointed out, might easily get lost in the desert. She would worry about him all the time he was gone. The upshot of the argument was that they set out together. But when they reached the spot where Bob had crashed to earth, a surprise awaited them. The wrecked airplane was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the place where they had left it was covered by a great mound of sand. Offering an obstacle to the sweep of the wind in the storm, it had been cov- ered over, buried under a mountain of fly- ing grit. To extricate it would require hours of labor, and a corps of expert shovelers. + Had the two remained there, or had they been able to return to it as a refuge from the storm, they also would have been en- tombed and their fate never known, unless some other freakish wind disintegrated the mound and revealed their bleaching bones. | They walked slowly around the hillock, their faces a little pale at the thought of the narrowness of their escape. i No use to leave a note now,” Bob com- mented with a shake of the head. “ Cale would fly right over this and never dream that it was different from any of the other dunes.” The sight of something projecting from a sort of hollow or depression on one side of the mound caught his eye at that moment, and he scrambled up to investigate. It proved to be a bit of the shattered leit wing of the plane, which, being uppermost when the machine hit the ground, had been ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. less deeply covered over than the remainder; and what showed was the exact spot where the wing had started to buckle. Bob gave a slight tug at it as if to see how fast the apparatus was imbedded; and to his surprise the strut on which he had laid hold came away in his hand. He gazed at it wonderingly; then with a startled exclamation came sliding down the mound to where Faith stood. “Look at that!” He held out the slen- der spar indignantly. “ That didn’t break of itself. See; it was sawed almost in two with a very fine steel saw, and then left so that it would snap under the first hard strain.” “You mean—” She stared at him. “Just that.” He nodded. “Some treacherous hound was out to get me. And I think I can name him, too.” His brow darkened. “I’m no Sherlock Holmes; but it looks to me very much as if this whole thing—the fake oil well, your abduction, and this attempt to get rid of me—was all part of one big conspiracy. Maybe, also, there have been other things going on He broke off suddenly, as if struck by a new suggestion. *“ By George!” he gasped. “ What? What is it?” cried Faith. “Northrup,” he muttered. “I’ve been wondering all day why he didn’t show up. This may be the explanation of it.” He — held up the telltale strut. “ They may have tried the same game on him, and—vwell, he may not have been as lucky as I was.” “ But Cale is always so overcareful,” she protested. ‘“ He told me when he was teach- ing me never to dream of taking off until i had thoroughly inspected every part of my plane, no matter what the temptation might be to let it go.” “TY know, I know,” assented Bob gloom- ily. “ But this is one time where we both took a chance; and with this proof of dirty work in connection with my plane ”—again he held up the broken strut—“ I can hard- ly doubt that something of the sort was done to him.” She turned away convinced, and hid her face in her hands. Once Bob would have construed her emotion as sorrow over the CoOmmicoooks _ (C@