Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 28, 1928 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

046 “And little Gladys, too, you say? Let me see.” He swung the ray beyond Norman so as to illumine the interior of the box car. “Ah! Sleeping as usual? What a little dormouse she is. But this time we will make no mistake, eh, Craw- ford?” He turned to his companion. “We will put them bye-o for keeps.” He took out his revolver and toyed significantly with it. Norman knew better than to appeal for mercy to that pitiless soul. “Crawford,” he pleaded, “you can’t go on with this. You can’t stand there, and let him butcher us in cold blood. At least, save Gladys. She has never done you any harm.” Crawford hesitated, but shook his head. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I have no liking for stich business, but I can’t help myself. Why the devil didn’t you get out, Rich, when you were warned? You had no call to stick your nose into all this, but you would do it. “ Now it’s you or me.” He seemed to be trying to work him- self up into a proper frame of indigna- tion to see the thing through. “ But Gladys, Crawford?” Norman appealed again. “Surely you will spare her? Surely—” “No!” Crawford snapped. “ She knows too much. It’s you two or me, I tell you. Self preservation.” He mumbled something else along the same line, and mopped his face un- steadily with his handkerchief. Ev- idently the strain of the thing was tell- ing on him. “Good Lord!” he snarled suddenly at Da Silva. “ Don’t look so darned happy. Don’t the fix of these poor devils touch you at all? Why the dickens couldn’t you have ended the mess the other night, instead of drag- ging me into a scene like this? “Tt’s all your blundering that brought me here anyhow,” he rasped. “No necessity for it, if you hadn’t told me of tieing them into the car, and so ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. leaving definite proof that it was a murder and not an accident. And then when I come to help you straighten out your silly mistake, I slam into this!” Norman’s brain, working overtime, caught a ray of hope from his grum- bling. “ Listen, Crawford!” he cried sharp- ly. “If it’s murder proofs that you’re afraid of, what clearer ones can there be than to have us shot, or killed in any other way? “TI warn you, that if you turn me over to this butcher, Pll put up a struggle which will show that there was no accident. In fact,” he voiced a desperate fiction, “I’ve already left a message that will be found, telling of Da Silva’s villainy and yours in hurling us over the cliff.” “Where is it?” demanded Da Silva threateningly. Where you would never think of looking for it. But it will be found. I wrote it, thinking I might never escape from here, and I wanted to let the world know what had happened.”’ The suggestion obviously gave the two miscreants pause; for they drew a little apart, and consulted in low tones. Once Norman heard Crawford raise his voice in protest. “No,” he said querulously. “No gun play, I tell you. And no knife work, either. He’s right about it. Certain murder proof of that sort would put both our necks in the noose.” Their voices sank again as Da Silva broke in upon him, and for a consider- able time they argued back and forth, while Norman, crouching at the door of the box car, watched them and waited in suspense. But at last Crawford seemed to have been overborne in their contention, whatever it was. ) “ All right. Have it your own way.” He flung up his hands. “ But I’ll not wait to see it. You'll have to put it through by yourself.” And without even a glance backward COMIC OOOKS (C@