Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

PUAN Sh 174 mysterious and unaccountable things. As he had other business in Tickfall that night, he decided to take the suit case with him. He walked up the street and stopped at a certain house which he surveyed for a mo- ment with a thoughtful grin. Inside that house Old Flounce had lived for more than fifty years. The front yard was a perfect jungle of rosebush growths. Nearly all the rosevines were trailing on barbed wire, and a winding path led from the gate up to the front door. In the rear yard grew nearly every va- riety of grape, and these vines trailed over barbed wire stretched from post to post. There were very narrow passageways be- tween the strands of wire where one might walk to gather grapes. The Swamp Cat remembered from his boyhood that Miss Caby always kept her purse hidden in a hole in the wall back of a tall grandfather’s clock. He reflected that old people did not change their habits. She had doubtless kept her money in that same hole through all the years. Walking cautiously down the winding path between the rosebushes, he pushed up an old fashioned window and stepped into the room. Then he precipitately stepped out, followed by a series of piercing screams. As he ran down the winding walk, he suddenly remembered that he had leit the suit case beside the window. Itrought him up with a jerk; then, chuckling with amusement, he traveled on with the speed and noiselessness of a shadow. Behind him in the midst of the excited screams of the woman, he distinctly heard the words: “Thief! Robber! Help!” The Swamp Cat did not know that Miss Caby had been kept awake that night by her rheumatism. Awakened by the sound of screaming, the men in the neighborhood hastily dressed and started from every di- rection to the help of the lady. Some rushed in from the rear:and in the darkness became confused among the grapevines and stumbled, and tripped, and fell, and tore themselves upon the barbed wire. Some rushed in from the front, and in the darkness they became entangled in the rose- vines, and their clothes were nearly torn off their bodies on the barbed wire. Some of ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the men became so confused in the jungie of vines that they could not find their way out at all, and had to be rescued by their friends when the excitement was all over. Two men managed to get inside the house, one advancing from the rear with a baseball bat, and the other advancing from the front with a pistol. The two men met in the dining room, each mistaking the other for a robber, and the battle was on! The man with the baseball bat had most advan- tage because the man with the pistol was a poor marksman. One flying bullet put out the only light burning in the house, and the battle ended, neither man hurt except where they had hurt themselves by tearing their bodies on the strands of barbed wire. After things had quieted a little, Miss Caby explained that she had seen a man enter the room, and when she screamed, he ran away. As the excitement subsided they sudden- ly heard a steady sound of sawing as if some man was trying to work his way into the house by cutting a hole through the floor of the house. The men tiptoed out ane began a cau- tious investigation. One of them turned a flash light under the house and the cause of the sawing sound was revealed. A neigh- ber’s pet pig had entered the yard and gone under the house and he was solemnly scratching his back by rubbing it up and down against one of the foundations of the building. As the man turned away to enter the house, he stumbled over a suit case and fell sprawling in a mass of barbed wire and rose vines. He rose from there, picked up the suit case and carried it into the house. The crowd gathered to inspect the discovery and an identification tag on the handle of the bag contained the name of Roone. “Whoever attempted to rob this house, had already robbed Roone’s home,” some- body suggested. ‘I move that we go find out what has happened up there.” Very quietly the crowd of men walked up the hill to the Roone home. They entered cautiously from a side gate, just as Manse came around the corner of the barn carry- ing a long ladder. Manse dropped his ladder and ran. The COMMIClOokKs (C@)