Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 5, 1928 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

650 Everybody who knows me would give three rousing cheers if I never come back. Les, here, is even more unpopu- lar than [ am. Besides I’m getting hungry.” They heard one of their captors chuckle. “ Nothing is going to happen to you guys much,” came out of the darkness. “You're juSt goin’ visiting for a few days.”’ “ Great!’ exclaimed the irrepres- sible. ‘“‘I certainly do love to visit. Will there be any girls there?” “You're too fresh,” growled the other unseen guardsman. “If you fel- lers do what yer told and don’t try any funny business, maybe you can go back to sellin’ ‘dogs’ some day. But we ain’t giving you any information, and we'd just as soon plug yo’ as not. Hey, Bill?” « Ise. cheer fully. “Listen,” began Les persuasively, “ we’re a couple of poor young fellows and not worth the taxi fare for this journey. Not having anything to lose by doing what you tell us, we have nothing to gain by making trouble. So why all the mystery? What do you want of us anyway?” “That’s the way to talk,” said the fellow opposite him. ‘ You'd be a couple of chumps to start anything, and you'd land in the river. Just play dead and you may come to life again some day.” . Now the taxi was bumping over a rough road. Cobbles by the feel, thought Les, which meant that they were down in the region of heavy trucks, either in the factory district or near the docks. A matter of ten minutes, and the machine finally stopped with a jerk. One of the two captors opened a door and backed out, drawing a gun as he did so. “Come out, you fellers,” he com- manded. Les descended first and looked around. The cab had turned Sooner,” said the other ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. off its lights and stood in a black shadow cast by a warehouse building, but Les got a glimpse of cranes, der- ricks, a high bridge in the distance, and the lights, red, green, and yellow of various craft in the harbor. They were on a dock. The second man now emerged from the interior of the taxi, “You go ahead, Bill,” he suggested. “Tl follow these birds and keep them covered.”’ 7 Bill opened a small door in the build- ing and stepped within. It was a vast interior lighted by a few electric bulbs at intervals of a couple of hundred feet, lights which winked in discouragement and seemed to make the darkness more dense. Les made out a hump in the middle of the floor which, as his eyes grew accustomed to the murk, he real- ized was a string of freight cars. “There should be watchmen,” he thought, “but of course they are in with these fellows or they would not bring us here.”’ “Come on. Step on it,” command- ed the man behind; accordingly they moved slowly after their guide. After a walk of a couple of hundred yards, so it seemed, they passed through a sliding door out upon the lip of the pier and confronted the bulk of a ves- sel. By her two stumpy masts, and ab- sence of a funnel and deckhouse at the stern, Les recognized her as a barge, most likely an oil barge. She was high-sided, which meant that she was empty, and he saw that she was of steel. Following their cap- tor they moved alongside the vessel until they came to a gangway set at a steep angle against the ship’s side. “ Oh,” exclaimed Chipmunk, “ we’re going yachting!” “Shut up, you son of a sea cook,” snarled the man in front. “ Not a word out of either of you. Climb now, and no noise.” | With some difficulty they went up the steel ladder and landed on a steel deck, lighted only by two electric lamps COPMICGLOOOKS (C@)