Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

POOR LITTLE PIGEON. there to get rid of Pablo the night after - Ramirez was brought in.” ‘“Tt’s hard to believe, though, even yet,” said Bernice Rand. ‘I mean it is hard to believe he was so false a friend. Of course—I knew how he felt—about me. He’d told me; but he knew Phil and I were engaged, and— To think he had a wife and child somewhere back East all along! I—it makes me feel queer—almost numb —now that I know what he really planned.” ‘““And yet now that we know his plan, it’s plain enough,” her father carried the discussion along. ‘‘ That mortgage—I gave it to him as a means of protection to him, to secure his loan. I never regarded it as more than a matter of form. I regarded him as a friend—felt sure he would extend it if I had to ask him.” “ Just how is the mine developing, Mr. Rand?” Dual inquired. “Very well, sir,” Rand told him. “ It’s a good thing, I’m convinced.” “Then,” Semi smiled, ‘‘ if you care to entertain the suggestion, I have a friend in Goldfield—a man by the name of Shel- don—”’ ““McDonahue Sheldon?” with sudden interest. “The same.”? Semi smiled again. “I see you have heard of him. He is an authority on such things, and never so happy as when he is dealing with them. I was about to suggest that if you desired I would ask him to interest himself in its further de- velopment—not in any way for my interest, but for yours, Mr. Rand.” ‘Why ’—Rand’s face lighted swiftly— ‘if you’d do that, Mr. Dual, I guess you’d be heaping even more coals on my head than you already have. I—I guess | wouldn’t dare to refuse.” “Tt’s perfectly splendid—like a fairy story,” Mrs. Perringer exclaimed. ‘ Mr. Dual’s a regular fairy godfather, and everything’s coming out right in the end. The princess is out of the dungeon and back in the arms of the prince, and everybody’s happy. I am myself.” Bernice flushed, and Newton laughed in a somewhat embarrassed fashion; and Quagley cleared his throat. Rand asked 939 ‘“Pulfer left quite some considerable property,” he said. ‘“‘ Last night I shook it out of that Chink Haddon picked up in that place where Stanley was in the habit of waiting for his dog, that Pulfer hired him to run the joint. Pulfer owned the building as well as the garage, an’ of course there is his ranch. Last night before Lolita took Mike away, she told me where Pulfer’s wife lives. I’m going to have her looked up.” ‘Poor Lolita,” said Bernice with a pen- sive look in her blue eyes—an almost brooding look that hinted she might be thinking of the girl who had not escaped the same betrayal which had so recently threatened herself. ‘‘ She took her father away, did she, Uncle Dan?” “Oh, sure.” Quagley nodded. ‘“ Took him down to the place where she’s been rooming. And she’s going back to her dancing, she says. She ain’t a bad sort as her kind goes. If Guy had been as straight with her as she was with him, he’d have been alive to-day, even if he had been head- ed for Leavenworth.” “Yet,” said Semi-Dual, “ the man but lived his atoms, lived in tune with the as- tral vibrations which were polarized as the keynote of his living at the moment of his birth. He followed them blindly, was false to others and in so much false to him- self. For it is true that no man lives to himself alone, that our thoughts and words and acts affect other lives. Life is a cur- rent, my friends, that flows endlessly throughout the wuniverse—and he who seeks to stem the current sooner or later finds himself swept down like a swimmer in its flood. But he who is wise synchro- nizes himself to the pulse of the heart of creation and so lives in tune with the In- finite.” ““ Isn’t that true?” Mrs. Perringer gushed again as he paused. ‘“ In tune with the In- finite. I read a book by that title once. It was full of the most beautiful thoughts. And thoughts are things. They must be if they can be read. So we ought to think good things. Isn’t it- amazing that if we do—if we think right and do right—really forget ourselves in trying to be kind to otkers—we’re really being as selfish as if COMmicoooksS.ec©