Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

THE AVENGING It made no cry as it advanced. Peter’s mouth had sagged open. As in a daze, he stared at the sleek feathered thing stand- ing before him. He drew back into his blankets, his blood cold. Watching, he saw the great bird spread its wings and rise to the table, where it perched in forbidding importance, its black head rolling from side to side—ominous, chilling, the hand-servant of Death. For forty years this grisly bird had scoured the desert, despised of men and feasting on the dead, but doing that which nature had intended it to do; justifying its place in the great scheme of things that is life; its only law, the survival of the fittest. Ever had man’s hand been raised against it. And yet it entered the dug-out this night, unafraid. Peter wanted to cry out and ask what ill- omened business brought it there, but his voice would not come. Everything that happened this night had a queer draw to. it! Where would this hellish nightmare. end? He wanted to get out—away; to fill his lungs with clean airagain. He willedé his hands to grasp his boots, but they re- fused to obey, and he could only sit and stare at that great, black, blinking thing there before him. “Look not on this bird as an enemy,” he heard Joseph say. ‘“‘ He is an old friend —I call him Grimm. He passes on all that I do; and he is never wrong. He never mis- takes an enemy for a friend. He it was who told me you were coming up the moun- tain to-night. He says nothing now because he accepts you as a friend.” “Take him away,” Peter gasped. “ He makes my flesh creep. Are you mad? Havin’ such things about you!” _foseph smiled at him. “JT understand you,” he said. “ Here you see ime, clad in rags, my companions the scavenger coyote and the carrion crow— outcasts of the desert—reviled, unioved— what a picture! And yet it is given even unto the lowest to reward kmdness with faithfulness. _ “When you speak of me, speak of my companions, for we are three: and if the least of these shall love me, I will not fail. = can read the — —— the ‘to find his old home still standing and in his — _ SHEPHERD. coyote reads the past; and Grimm, most maligned of all feathered creatures, un- veils the mysteries of the future!” -CHAPTER IX, _ TEMOTEO SPEAKS. ROM the day ‘that he had returned ta Buckskin, Joseph had cast his eyes at its rocky crest. Throughout the years he had looked forward to the time when he — should stand there and read the message his mother had left him. In fancy, he had done Z = so a thousand times. And yet—now that he — ‘was there—he had found himself rehiciane= to face it. As he had grown older, a fixed idea of what he would find had settled on him; put his return to the mountain had de- ance. He had — bitterness at finding it destroyed he had told himself he dared not hope that any~ ao. remained for him on Buckskin. Peter Organ had explained many things to Joseph. For a day after the old-‘man _ had left, the boy did not leave the coulee. With great patience he arranged in his mind — what Peter had said. Of one thing he was = certain—his mother’s message was a secret no longer. pected. But his way was ar eee now; and at sunrise, the following morning, Se he stood upon the mountain top. ~The world was still—hushed with ‘the wonder of the coming day. Far below him, the desert floated in a lavender sea; to the east the distant Tuscarora Mountains were splashed with warm yellows and cold pinks. — Slippy-foot leaped to the topmost pin = nacle and, lifting her head, she barked a~ greeting to the sun- god. Almost at once the sun leaped clear of the far horizon and — flooded mountain and plain with vibrant — = light. As if pursued, the gray shadows, lingering in canon and draw, took to fight = = and were gone. _At this moment the glory of the universe == Joseph raised his hands de- voutly and, lifting his eyes to Heaven, te: 22 thanks t to his Creator. = = was God’s. - He felt that he knew its con- - = == tents in full. It was not what he had ex- com A ——