Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

CLOVELLY. dle of the whip and slashed it across the faces of both of his antagonists, for they were sitting their horses side by side. It was a cutting blow, and as accurately aimed as any sword slash, for it bit them over the eyes and half blinded them. They fired off their pistols with a roar of oaths and of pain, but they had fired blindly. As for Clovelly, he dug his heels into the tender flanks of White Harry and the big gray shot away like a thunderbolt. He crashed between the two mounts which stood before them. His powerful shoulder cast one to the ground, horse and man. Lord Pennistone’s horse was flung far to the side, and White Harry was instant- ly among the honest fellows who, at his lordship’s command, had just filed across the road to block his advance. But not one of them had his weapon in a position to fire. An instant before yonder was their man calmly surrendering to their master, and now he was crashing through them on a horse which looked as huge and as winged as a thunder cloud. The three or four immediately in front of him fled for their lives from the giant animal; the others turned about, pitched their guns up, and fired a scattering volley. They found an elusive target, however, which was already a vital distance away, for Clovelly had swung his mount under the shadows of the line of trees on his right. That dappling of shadows which fell upon him and White Harry made them a more difficult target to strike. He was flattened in the saddle, and even so one slug slashed his coat at the shoulder and another caught his hat and knocked it clean from his head. He twitched White Harry through a gap in the trees, and at the same instant the whole body of men down the road belched a volley after them. The bullets rattled among the branches and brought down a shower of leaves around him, but that was all. He rode ahead, unhurt, and turning in his exultation he shook his fist behind him, then went on, bringing White Harry down to a moderate gallop at once, so perfect was his surety that he would escape. He now swung the stallion back into the road. Those behind him had fired their 111 volley; but by the time they reloaded he would be safely beyond them and the only danger in which he lay was from their pistols; yet how could pistols strike at two hundred yards? Yonder came half a dozen riders, however, spurring their horses, with sword in one hand and pistol in the other. He only laughed at these, and called gaily — to White Harry. The big stallion took wings over the hill; he jumped him over a tall hedge on the farther side; leaped a broad creek in the middle of the field; cleared a wall on the farther side, and final- ly found himself upon the other fork of the road, with the pursuit fallen to a dull and drowsy sound of shouting in his rear. One thing he knew—they would not jump those fences but would wait until they found the gates in them; and comforted by this thought, he brought White Harry back to a conservative pace once more and went on again, blessing the giant strength and heart of that good mount. He came upon the carriage almost at once. Dunbar drew up his horses to a slow trot and as he drew alongside, the girl stood up in the carriage and stared at him like one reclaimed from the dead. ‘““ Thank God!” he heard her cry more to herself than to him. ‘“ There is no mur- der done.” He pondered that voice and those words for a moment, but he had no time to waste upon her and her emotions. Instead, he communed with Dunbar at once upon the goal for which they should strike that night. He could get nothing but exclamations from the coachman at first. ‘When they poured around you, sir,” he said, ‘‘ and when they held their pistols to your head, and when I saw that your two hands were over your head, I’d a mind that you’d never look me in the face again, nor your wife neither. And then I heard the guns roaring. ‘ He’s tried to get away,’ says I to myself, ‘ and they’re blowing him to bits with their blunderbusses!’ But I went on down the road. ‘His ghost ‘ll haunt me,’ says I, ‘if I pull up and wait to see what’s happened!’ ”’ Having expressed all of this astonish- ment, which Clovelly allowed to go unan- swered, the master now inquired about the COMICLOO G S (C@