Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

2712 head, and he fled like a black thunderbolt northwestward, toward Laskar. _ CHAPTER XXIII. THE LIGHT IN THE CABIN. “™* VE had never been to Laskar; she did not even know that a trail led to that town. But when she and Channing had seen Vallon’s assailants riding north- westward and Channing had remarked that they seemed to be headed toward Laskar, she had observed the salient features of the country through which they rode. Also, she knew the location of that section of land which Channing had referred to as Elk Bottom. It was a great flat rimmed by hills on its northerly and southerly sides; a wild place where sometimes cattle grazed, and which had been given its name because in winter elk might be found there. So now as she rode she guided Mazeppa toward the place. There was no trail that led to Elk Bottom, though she supposed that if Vallon’s assailants had ridden through it she would have no trouble in following them. Channing’s words: “‘ Seems they’re headin’ toward Laskar,” seemed to indicate that if one followed the course the man had taken one would in time reach Laskar. After she had crossed several miles of level and the land began to slope downward, she found riding dangerous, and she won- dered why anyone would ride in that direc- tion. She did not know that the trail to Laskar ran a good many miles southward, beyond the range of hills that rimmed Elk Bottom. And Elk Bottom had a different aspect at night than when she had gazed at it during the day while she had been riding with Channing. From a distance it had appeared green and inviting, alluring. With the moonlight shining on it, it had a sinister, threatening appearance. Menace seemed to lurk all about her. But she urged Mazep- pa down the slope into it, grimly determined not to turn back. She was two hours traveling the length of the flat, and when Mazeppa finally clam- bered up the slope at the farther end and ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, halted jt the crest to regain his wind, she looked back at the shadows and shuddered. A stretch of country more wild and grim than the flat she had just crossed confronted her. She rode into a tangle of trees and undergrowth which seemed to spread into interminable distances around her. She could find no trail, no unobstructed aisle. She halted Mazeppa and gazed back. She would have ridden through the flat again in the hope of finding a better way, if she had not been so frightened at the brooding silence of the place. Reasoning that the men she had seen rid- ing toward Elk Bottom must have known of an open space somewhere in this region, and deciding that such an open space should be northward, because Laskar was in that general direction, she wheeled Mazeppa and guided him by the north star, which at times she could see through the trees. She rode northward for several hours. A gray light on the horizon informed her that dawn was not far distant. She pulled Ma- zeppa to a halt and stared helplessly about her. Below her, extending for perhaps a hun- dred miles, swathed in the gray light of the steadily advancing dawn, was a wilder- ness of country of whose existence she had never dreamed. It was so colossal a vision that her senses reeled in an effort to com- prehend it. That it would appear different in clear daylight she had no doubt. But in the shadowy light which bathed it now it appeared ghostly, unreal, phantasmargoric. At her feet was a precipitous rock wal. It dropped, almost sheer, to depths that her eyes could not fathom. Out of the im- penetrable shadows somewhere below stretched a range of hills with broad, black crests. The hills were featured by gigantic knobs and crags, and they stretched away northward in a heavy, sinuous line until they vanished into a gray mist. Half a dozen flats like Elk Bottom stretched be- fore her vision. They lay silents brood- ing, calmly indifferent. A mist, floating like a veil of fleece above them, gave them an appearance of having just emerged from the chaos of creation. A mighty gorge, be- tween the range of hills and some red scoria cliffs eastward, was fringed by a tangle of tA GOMIGIOO S (C@) nn