Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

6380 { don’t know just what speed he made on that road to the lake. I didn’t dare look at the speedometer.- He was in my bailiwick right enough now. But I knew ’twas useless to argue with him. Also, there was no way for me to stop the car. So I held my hat and my breath and let. him® flip. “You goin’ to meet your wife, Jimmie?” T asked as we turned in on the dirt road that led, to another dirt road which in its turn led to the beach. “Tam going for to observe and nossibly to admire,” says Jimmie. I didn’t like the look on his face now.: Heretofore it had been kind of lighted up from an inner excitement. citement seemed to have died in him. His face had kind of whitened out, takin’ on a sort of burned out look. There was some lines in it, particularly one long line from about the middle of the side of his nose to the corner of his mouth. And the face was older, grimmer. Why, says I to myself, this lad is suffer- ing the tortures of the pit. I was sorry. I seen now that all his actions so far had . been a kind of a cloak to cover up what he had been feeling. But that was his own particular busi- ness and nothing for me to try to probe into. I think he would- have walloped even me if I had gone too far. When we come to the road that led direct to the lake; Jimmie didn’t tun into it. He run. the car- up the road we was on for a little ways and then drove it up on the grass under a big maple tree. '“Tet’s hop down and stretch our legs,” he says. We was right in 1 front of a ‘field i m which: waist high corn was growing. Without a word Jimmie let himself through the wires of ‘the fence and held two of them. far apart so I could ease my _ tonnage through. Then we went down two aisles of corn toward the lake. Back of the corn- field there was a five acre wood patch and beyond that more corn. The end of this cornfield brought us to the bluff above the beach.. This bluff was fringed with second growth trees and weeds and one kind and another of rough growing things. Now that ex- - ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. When we come. to ‘it, Jimmie put a hand on my arm. “ Easy, Mr. Tom Hill,” he says does it.” He went forward and parted the bushes and stuff and I did the same. we was peering down on the beach. All we saw was the blue lake with the blue sky. bending down to it far away and the sand “* Hasy _ beach with driftwood and shells and stones “on it. Nobody was in sight. 7 “* Ah,” says Jimmie, “ she isn’t here! » I knowed then that he had been hoping to get a look at his young wife when she didn’t- know that he was helping himself. to the look—and that is a bad symptom in a young husband.. Well, I felt pretty un- comfortable when I see just how the land. lay.. Mebbe it was all right for him to go snooping after his wife like this, but it was not any job for Mr. Tom Hill. . “There is nobody here,” I says. the shade and wait for you. ” He took my left arm in one of thesé here grips of steel. I had to double up my. fist to harden the muscles so that he wouldn’t bite into the bone. : “Don’t leave me, Hill, ” he says. leave me.” | I glanced at him in surprise. He was all of a weak sweat. He didn’t stack up like no fullback or champeen pool player or tough guy generally that could drink liquor and inhale cigarette smoke. hke a little. kid that is about ‘to acel Ee business end of a strap. “ Well, I don’t like this business,” says I. ‘T ain’t no eavesdropper.” ‘I suppose you think it is a fine and thrilling experience for me,” he says, hope- less. “ Stick around, Tom.” ““ J—” T began. “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go!” The young voice of the girl—whoever. she was—rose high and sweet in the silence. I peered out and looked along the beach. and Jimmie done likewise. For a minute J couldn’t see nothing. Then around a shoul- der of the bluff. came five girls, running as hard as they could run. I reckoned they was summer visitors, for [ had never seen In a minute’ a9 I think I will vo back to the car and set in * Don’t He was more COMNNUC JOO S C@ y