Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

326 me, but you shan’t take me back. They’ll hang me.” The thin body under Starley twisted and squirmed desperately. “Quiet, my hearty!” rumbled Starley, soothingly. “‘ Ease off! You’re out of your head. Wait till I get some water.” He started to leave the boy, but felt the sudden lurch for freedom. The crazed youth would flee into the darkness, and pay for his fear with slow death. “ No, you don’t!” warned the desert man. , He rose, picked up the clawing figure, and tucked it under his arm as he would a sack of alfalfa. Then he felt his way to the canteens, found them, and laid the boy on the sand again while he poured water over the burning face, and forced it be- tween muttering lips. The youth choked, gasped, then sudden- ly relaxed. “ You won't let ’em hang me?” he demanded. ‘“ You won’t let ’em hang me? I killed him, but I had to. Honest, I had to. You won’t let ’°em hang me?” “No,” Starley answered. “I'll not let them hang you. Now goto sleep! You'll be better in the morning.” The boy sighed deeply. His hand caught the huge paw of the desert man, and clung tightly. ‘‘ Don’t — let — ’em — hang — ” The words trailed off into silence; the lad’s fevered breathing became slower, more reg- ular. Cramped, chilled, thoroughly uncom- fortable, Jerome Starley sat hunched over the sufferer, unwilling to free himself from that trusting grip. Once in the long hours which followed he spoke. “Tf this isn’t the damnedest thing!” he muttered. ‘ Holding the hand of a mur- derer so’s he can sleep!”’ —_ —_—__ ———_—- CHAPTER I. A FRIEND IN THE DESERT, = OW then, spit it out!” Jerome Starley issued the order soon after dawn. With the first light he had released himself from that des- perately clinging hand, and prepared a frugal breakfast of coffee and sour-dough biscuit. The boy had awakened soon after, in ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. time to eat a little food, all that Starley would allow him. Sullen, the lad was, dis- trustful! His blood-shot eyes studied the figure of the desert man. Once he essayed conversation. “You’re the biggest man I ever saw,” he said. ‘ The tallest, anyway, and the broadest at the shoulders.” Starley had merely grunted; he wasn’t ready to talk yet, and he didn’t want the boy to get the idea that he could dodge the issue by mak- ing conversation. Now that the breakfast dishes were sand- scoured, and put away Starley filled his pipe, and hunched himself in the sand, fac- ing the boy. For a moment he studied the youth, marked the weak, shifting eyes, the un- usual contour of the head, pinched in at the cheek bones, the thin jaw, and reced- ing chin. Not a prepossessing boy, surely, yet obviously more weak than vicious. His inspection completed, Starley repeated his command: “ Spit it out!” “What?” The boy’s eyes darted right and left as if searching for a way to escape. “You know what: the reason you are afraid of me, the reason you were running loco on the desert yesterday, the thing you mentioned last night.” ““T was off’n my bean last night, I guess. Talkin’ foolishness. I haven’t done nothin’.” Jerome Starley leaned forward, and waved his pipe as if knocking aside the words of denial. ‘ Listen,” he said, ‘“ I’ve got to know your story so’s I can decide what to do with you. You’ve killed a man. That’s plain enough. All right. Now where, and why?” ‘IT didn’t!” The youth clamped his thin jaws stubbornly on the words. It was plain he had no idea of confessing, | Starley sucked thoughtfully at his pipe. He couldn’t make the boy speak, not with- out physical violence, and thought of pun- ishing a fellow who was already weakened by a terrible ordeal was distasteful to the desert man. He couldn’t blame the boy for not con- fessing, either. Yet he must know the truth in order to plan his next move. Perhaps he could win the lad’s confidence, persuade him that here was a man to trust. COPMICLOOOKS (E@)