Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

HAWAIIAN HEELS. 559 galley until she went back to the after deck. | Slum tried the swinging door. It opened easily. There was blackness below. It was the way to the steerage cockpit. Softly he clambered down the ladder. On the left was a bracket electric light with a green shade. Under it lay two bunks, one above the other. On the lower he saw the figure of Lance Houston, face downward. Over it a Kanaka was leaning, engaged in the business of tying the hands across the back. Slum took from his shirt the piece of driftwood he had picked up on the beach. He crept behind the Kanaka and raised it above his head with the intention of bringing it down in a single fierce blow, but as he elevated it to the level of his eyes he noticed that it lay in his hand like a leveled revolver, the butt in his palm, the bar- rel pointing out. The sense of drollery and ironic hu- mor that usually dominated him, came uppermost. He stepped forward and thrust the end of the stick abruptly into the back of the Kanaka, right behind the left lung. ‘‘ Put up your dukes,” he hoarsely muttered. Shivering with fright, the Kanaka threw up his hands. “ Speak a word and yer a dead man,” Slum went on. The Kanaka’s nerveless jaw chat- tered. Slum threw an arm around his windpipe, while he seized the rope that still dangled from his hand and quick- ly tied the Kanal~’s wrists behind his back. Above a folding lavatory at the head of the bunk was a towel “rack. From this Slum took a towel and gagged the Kanaka. Then he shoved him down in one corner. All of this occupied but a few min- utes, and was carried on in the utmost silence. When it was completed, Slum tossed the dummy “pistol” on to the side of the bed. The eyes of the bound and gagged Kanaka saw the deception. They popped out curiously. He writhed under his bonds; but they held. “Pull, you varmint,’ Slum mut- tered, as he turned his attention to Lance; “the harder you pull the tight- er you'll be. Trust a cow-puncher to make a cross hitch that ’Il stick under any strain.” He turned Lance over on his back. A. great happiness came to him as he saw the steady rise and fall of the widespread lungs of his buddy. After a little searching he discovered the cause of the misfortune, the wen on the back of Lance’s head where the blood was now matted and congealed on the scalp. He found another towel over the lavatory, and some water. He began bathing the wound, all the time whis- pering softly in the: unconscious ear: ‘Didn't I tell ye not to travel none without a nurse? If you'd only come back with me we’d been clear of all this. “It’s that danged ‘skirt’ tripped ye up. Ye'd never been in no trouble yet nohow if it wa’n’t for women. It was a she devil shot another one in the Cross-Eyed Duck and blew ye into Honolulu. Shot ’er in the back, too, the slippery female, but that wa’n’t enough for you to lay you off women for life; you had to get tangled up with this red-headed flapper. “'That’s what brings ’em all down— the google-eyed redheads. I’d like us to be ridin’ them ponies. Wouldn’t hurt my conscience none to leave her to this here heavy and his gang 0’ niggers. “Come on, now, cowboy, yer breathin’ natchul. ’Long as they ain’t soaked ye in the body, reckon yer O K. Ain’t nothin’ hard ’nough to crack that bone head o’ yourn.” The throb of the engines muffled any sound that might have penetrated from these muttered whisperings out of the com chooksic ee = 2 = ees