Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

re eva tie a . ° : - . ¥ ius $f ————. PATTING Tl By LAURIE YORK ERSKINE Author of *‘ The Laughing Rider,*’ ‘‘ The River Trail,’’ etc. CHAPTER XXXVIII. A LOSING BATTLE, O it was done. Wade had not been S bluffing. Before he had made his threat, no doubt before he had left the city, he had communicated with Welsh and arranged this gathering of witnesses which was the key to Corvan’s ruin. : Corvan summed up the situation in a single flame of thought as he stood face to face with the gambler, Harmon Welsh. He knew that Welsh harbored a grudge against him, and he knew that Harmon Welsh was unforgiving. 7 With this man and the creatures of this man to help him, Wade could make good his threat. He could frame Corvan for a prison sentence. ‘ For the chair!’ Wade had cried. : Corvan doubted that, but quickly upon the doubt he remembered that he doubted once that Wade could bring these false witnesses together. What if Wade had spoken the truth again? Corvan felt a sickly, hopeless premonition that anything could happen to him now. Like the recurring chorus of an ancient tragedy, the old thought hummed in his mind. He could no nothing good, nothing decent, kindly or genuine, but what he brought down upon himself a retribution. Tt was as though in each decent thing he did he transgressed a natural and irresistible law. And every such effort he had made had brought him nearer and nearer to this threshold of ruin, even death! If any person in that room had looked upon those two men then, they would have seen them standing, facing each other, each . This story began in the Argosy-Allstory Weekly for March 15 600 O Eomichook (E@) oe “ Se gg