Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

VINGO’S LADY SERPENT. tion could have easily been overheard by Jeff Barnes; and I knew that the sound had been made by the two front legs of his chair coming down. I sauntered into the sitting room to see if he had taken alarm, and was just in time to see his large, pasty hand disappearing from the window sill. Yes, sir. He had heard every word of it, and was making tracks for that whisky factory of his—that still that made corn liquor pure enough for babies to drink! That meant trouble. I looked over the dozen people sitting around the room and whispered to the Randolph twins. “We're going down to raid Barnes’s still. Barnes got wind of it and has gone. Come on.” Alvina got up and came over then, with a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth. ‘“‘What’s the excitement?” she wanted to know. ‘“ Why did Jeff just dive out of that window?” I paid no attention to her. The twins sprang up and followed me out of the room. I heard Alvina say to her handsome North- erner: : ‘“ Come on, hon. see what’s going on.” She snapped her fingers for the fox ter- riers, and they followed us out. I went to the post where Jeff Barnes had tied his mule, but it was gone. And I knew that, even in my flivver, I would have to hurry to catch up with him. -On the mule, he could short-cut through swamps, while I would have to follow the King’s road, and it was almost twice as long that way. Belinda and Christine were waiting beside my car, and when I cranked up they climbed in. Behind us, a few seconds after we started, I heard the grinding of the Mer- cedes starter and the soft whine of the gears, then the glare from its headlights was thrown against my windshield. It was a four-mile drive from the Clay- burn farm to Barnes’s place, and when we got there the house was dark. I realized that it might not be an easy job to locate that still. Behind the house a pine ham- mock started and it ran, broken only by an Something’s up, Let’s occasional cypress swamp, all the way to Cypress Spoon, five miles north, and spread out in fan shape to the river, three miles west. It might be like trying to locate a needle in a haystack, but then, again, it mightn’t. : Alvina and Anatole Logan drove up as I got out of my flivver. “What are you lookin’ for?” Alvina called out. “Your brother’s still.” And she laughed. The lamp on the Mer- cedes dashboard was shining in the young fellow’s face, and I could see that he was anxious, He had come out to have a good time, to be amused by a wake, and he wasn’t exactly hungry for this kind of excitement. There was trouble in the air, and I suppose, with the caution of every city man, he was picturing himself subpcenaed as a witness — and wondering if he hadn’t better be mov- ing along. The twins walked around the house and started for the woodshed in back. I had parked the flivver so that the headlights il- luminated one side of the house and the shed, and as Jim and Ed came around and into the white light, a head popped out of the woodshed door. I started running toward it, and as I did so Bad Eye Eely came ducking out. He made for the timber as fast as his long legs — would carry him. Then Jeff Barnes appeared in the door- way, and he had a shotgun in his hand. The headlights glittered in his eyes, and he certainly looked to me like an ugly cus- tomer. If I hadn’t thought Jeff Barnes was a bad egg before this, I thought so now. ‘“*1’m goin’ to shoot!” he yelled. IT stopped where I was, with my finger itching on the trigger of old man Clayburn’s revolver. With the law behind me, I was dying to shoot that fellow. But I didn’t. I didnt have a chance. Jim and Ed walked straight up to him. They knew more about that shotgun of his than I did. They knew the hammer spring was broken. Ed made a grab for the gun and when Jeff snatched it up to use as a club, Jim hit him. The gun dropped, and Jeff Barnes started to run. Ly GComichooks.co 381 Ed hit him as he went