Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

iy t wR "y Wi Py tial Ady J ‘hart LW ht { ite PC EAP AN Sm er tae A hi: i> et aii (66h s flesh. Tad . True) \ Pena Aa AB i, . yA fi 1 yt haf. f ( h hie ey ay fi} i'w ak oa bee yd We ae ee AY be ANA MAN halt eats } ; ; , Nyt Loe at bey na var STAT AN A TPN cath oe Re AE Ga) arp yi pees TAWA a Ope : r eet. ( au : Sia x ew } a s : PAC , 4 - i , , of Micah T ne Rat ule Mates et Bt pale Oe Ube Abd) ’ ‘ ARGOSY-A\ _tastic ee found beneath the ‘sea, = there came into view a shock of ragged, : “With - nervous. oe a centered tee gun at the middle ‘of the thatch of hair—wait- ing—scarcely breathing in his great nerv- ousness—waiting for the first clear line of — It came: a livid, pasty colored fore- head. He fired. Once. Twice. He ‘pulled There was no- the trigger a third time. sound. gees 8 hanks, ” said. the cook “peculiar: ‘voice your sixth shot. And now I shall kill you.” CHAPTER XX. FIRELESS SMOKE. | I: is perfectly true that the first four shots fired by my nephew were never heard. The fire started by Micah Thrumm was. not 2 dangerous one, but we had no means for knowing so at the time of its dis- — covery. The first indication we had that = something was amiss was a burst of smoke that came sweeping suddenly. aft from the bows. ‘The alarm was given at once and — spread on wings through the yacht. Every- one, sick or not, came rushing on deck and ~ hurried forward, ten in ane grip of foe can arouse. Captain Wicktrom was of na ee _ mind as to what to do. Regardless of what — Ss individual menace there might be to Bil- - lings, the yacht and her human freight as a whole were, in the final analysis, his ee greater responsibility. He recalled the sen- ____tries from their posts and had them-take | up their stations which had been assigned — during the numerous fire drills he had_con-— ducted and- the efficiency of which, until then, he had never had an opp ortunity 7 for ree under actual conditions. There was” = believe hae on . the whole | he -excilement_ == did not last longer than five : minutes. == ‘Though the volume of smoke was exces- —— ‘sive, no immediate source of the fire could — be discovered. For a moment it seemed that — ___the deck itself was burning. = could be seen. But no flames _ After the first burst of con-_ = That, i believe, was. | still under the inflt tu LSTORY WEEKLY. - fusion, smoke bombs. were discovered and the whole business was recognized as its — true worth, as a ruse on the Tart of Micah -Thrumm. = Hf so, == felt, a ha failed. for Fillings, ve cho had ‘sufficiently. recovered. from the shock of his wound to move about again, had been constantly at: my side throughout the alarm. He was quite. unharmed. My_ first thought as a solution for the pseudo — fire was that Micah ‘Thrumm had been anx- aise i oe himself eane it, during our absence and the absence of the guards, ex else to plant. in it some- instrument of death. — We had Besa to straggle front Sake and into the saloon—every one chattering in more or less of a high-pitched, nervous fash- ion—when my Pepe 'S- Aith = a ‘shots | were heard. = z For no sooner did he hee ape voice of | Micah ‘Thrumm saying: “That, I believe, was your sixth shot. And now I shall kill you,” than he realized in full what a fool he had been. Nor had there been agy sane _ excuse for. his folly. - = Not once but a juandred times, - since he aaa graduated from his primers, had he read of the ancient western trick of sticking an empty hat up to draw the enemy’s fire. And in this case, as he well knew as soon as his- Sain. cleared from the nervousness. and ex-— -citement of the past tense moment, it had been nothing ‘more human that Micah - Thrumm had lowered beneath the ec of the table than an empty wig. _ My nephew crouched at once to his knees in the least strained position he could af- fect, and tensed himself to plunge out and grapple ‘Micah : Chrumm’ s legs aS soon as “he should - jump to the floor. And his eye looked. ceaselessly along the table’s lower ‘rim in search of a fand that might appear and start pumping lead in his direction. _ We had determined at the rection of the source of the two shots, and, ence of mob excitement, 7 Frantically pounding upon my _ nephew’ s Tt ‘would not ‘open, as. . Micah Thrumm = “had bolted it upee the inside, but it took | “comicboo ‘Ss ‘com ~ SS iat. point the di