Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

274 trail took a sharp turn and she saw the water of the river gleaming near her. There- after she rode on with more confidence, for she felt it would not be long before the Carter ranch house would loom in the moonlight ahead of her. She kept strain- ing her eyes for a glimpse of a light, and when at last she detected a tiny pinpoint gleaming in the distance she urged Mazeppa toward it. The light grew larger in her vision, and when it assumed the shape of a rectangle she was almost on the point of crying aloud with joy. She grew calm when the house itself took shape before her; it seemed to her like a fairy house with its outlines traced in the silver light from the moon, looming against a somber background of trees. Near the front of the house she dismount- ed. She trailed the reins over Mazeppa’s head and eagerly walked forward, knowing that the presence of a light in one of the rooms meant that some one was still astir. She mounted the front porch and walked to the front door. She was not surprised to find that the door was open. Most doors in this section of the country were open nearly all the time. She paused in the open doorway, flushed, eager, embarrassed. For she saw a small table near the center of the room with a bottle and glasses upon it; and lying on the floor near the table were two men. They were huddled queerly, and it seemed to her that the presence of the bottle and the glasses told mutely of a drinking bout which had resulted in the in- ebriation of the two men. Shocked, she shrank back. The scene be- fore her convinced her that if this was Car- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ter’s house it could not be the orderly place that had been implied by Channing’s de- scription of it. And then, as she stood for an instant in the doorway, meditating flight, she saw a dark pool of something spreading —or that had spread—from beneath one of the men. She gasped, pressed both hands over her chest. She stood in the doorway for a long time before she could summon courage enough to enter the room. And when she timidly approached one of the men and looked down at his fate she stifled a scream. For the man at whom she was looking was Douglas, one of the men who had accom- panied Givens on the day the latter and Montana and Monty had appeared at the Circle B to kill Channing. She stood, again meditating flight. But a piece of paper on the table near the bottle and glasses caught her view and she stepped forward and read what was written upon it. * Vallon’s friend,” were the words. She knew! Channing had been here! She stood, pallid of face, staring down at the paper, shuddering with horror. How long she stood there she did not know. She turned at a sound to see Givens standing in the doorway looking at her. Behind Givens were Montana and a man she did not know. Their eyes were wide with astonishment, but she observed that Givens had quickly comprehended that trag- edy had visited the room, for his eyes were narrowing and chilling. He stepped into the room and moved close to Eve. “Well, hell’s fire!” he ejaculated, a strange, wild leap in his voice. ‘‘ Some- body’s cleaned up on Nelly an’ Douglas, an’ left Eve Winthrop here to square things!” TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK U U U THE 182ND NOVEL, ORIGINALLY PRINTED SERIALLY IN THIS MAGA- ZINE, TO BE PUBLISHED IN BOOK FORM IS THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL BY DAVID FOX, Author of “ The Super Swing,” etc. (Arcosy-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, March 29 to May 3, 1924.) Published in book form by Robert M. McBride & Co., New York. Price $2.00. COMMUC DOOK CO