Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

MOORS END. Uncle Gregory turned to cast off the rope, he sprang on hing. Shirley screamed and I raised my pistol, but I dared not fire for fear I should hit my uncle. But he knew how to take care of himself; as the man sprang, Uncle Gregory caught up a heavy wrench and struck him squarely on the head. He gave a queer, strangled cry, and dropped down on the wharf. | Quite coolly, Uncle Gregory cast off the rope and took the wheel of the power-boat. As it curved gracefully out into the harbor and headed for the distant ocean I recov- ered from my stupefaction, and called out: “The man is harmless. You can come beck now!” Ii my uncle heard ine he paid no at- tention, and together we watched the boat slip over the sun-yellowed waves, making. steadily for the open sea. Only as I still looked, I half fancied that I saw the flick- er of a white hand for an instant in what almost, seemed to be an ironical farewell. N CHAPTER XXII. PETER. , © quick had been the whole action I have described, and so unexpected was my uncle’s disappearance, that Shirley and I remained staring at each other, all processes of reason stricken from our minds. Then the reaction came; in spite of the doubtful situation, and the dangers that might still be in wait for us, the ludicrous side of the situation swept over us and we burst out into spontaneous laughter. For fully five minutes we stood and shook with a merriment that relieved the tension and animosity of the past two days more effectually than anything else could have done. Suddenly, the man lying on the dock before us moved slightly and groaned, Shirley sobered instantly, and she and I bent over him. — “It seems so heartless to laugh,” she sighed, “ but I just had to, you looked so funny standing there in your stocking feet with your hair all rumpled up and that silly Struck look on your face.” ° ® Digitized by (Go ogle 423 “Well, I didn’t look any more funny than you,” I retorted good-naturedly, gtad to have her speak tq me in the old com- radely way. “I think we deserve a laugh after all we have been through, and, any- way, he’s not dead.” Privately, I would not have been sorry to have been rid of him, but it might have been troublesome to be left with a corpse or our hands. I’m afraid Shirley read my thoughts, for she looked at me with some return of her old coldness. ““He’s badly hurt; we shal? have te get him up to the house at once.” I groaned at the prospect of having to carry this disreputable rufhan a second time up to the house. Et would have been absurd if it was not so irritating; and all at once I felt heartily sick of the whole affair, and conscious that I was both ex- ceedingly stiff from my gymnastics on the window-sill, and very hungry. As far as I could see, the situation was not pleasant; here we were left alone again, this time to have to explain both the dis- appearance of my uncle and the appear- ance of his assailant. There were many things about each that I wanted to think over carefully, but this was not the time nor the place. I bent over the man and was just in the act of lifting him up, when the sound of oarlacks made me stop. With the hope that it was my uncle com- ing back again, I turned te stare in that direction; but a mament’s glance showed me that it was not he. The boat was an ordinary row-boat, and the man in it, I could see even from this distance, was no one I knew. Shirley, too, was looking at him puzzlediy, and I could see no recog- nition in her face. He came on steadily, not even peusing to look back of him te direct his course, but rowing hike a man who knows his way well. Only when he was about fifty feet off, did he turn, and then I saw that he was an elderly man with stooping shoulders and grizzled hair. Poor man, he must have had a shock when he saw us standing there, a strange disheveled group. His eyes fairly stuck out, and his jaw dropped as he stopped rowing and drifted alongside. “Who are you?” I called out. “If you Or ‘gina oe yy DOO ce S CO