Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

282 his fist and, infuriated to madness, Lederer bashed heavily at the head he held within his arm. He got two blows home which shattered Cosgrove’s world in a shock of fiery torture. It dazed him, but in his daze he plunged upward with his body, and the last crashing blow of Lederer’s fist struck home on the solid rock. With a shattered, bleeding fist, Lederer shrieked his pain and relaxed the hold which had Cosgrove close to unconsciousness. But something more potent than consciousness impelled Cosgrove to take advantage of it. He stumbled to his knees and, groping for Lederer’s throat, found it. His fingers closed on it and pressed with all the strength of his clenched hands. Lederer writhed, feeling life blacken in his mind. He writhed, and then in the blackness, he kicked. His kick lashed the air, but it flung Lederer from the ground, and his weight thus being hurled upon Cos- grove’s hands, it brought the two of them crashing upon the rocks. Lederer beneath, Cosgrove on top. They rolled over and over. Now Cosgrove lost his hold, found it again with one hand, sought to join it with the other, and received a blow in the mouth which cut his lip, filling his mouth with blood, choking him. Then Lederer was free. He sprang to his feet and kicked with spurred heel at the darkness where he felt Cosgrove’s form to be. Cosgrove received one glancing blow of that deadly heel in the side of his chest. He had been halfway upon his feet and it sent him spinning, spinning into the black- ness with the warm blood streaming down his side where the spur had cut. And then he saw the black form of Lederer, only a trifle blacker than the night, stumble across his vision. He appeared as though the man was retreating, but where? To what could he retreat? On his knees Cosgrove glanced before the stumbling figure and caught the glint of a revolver on the ground. With a cry he plunged forward. He saw Lederer pause for a split second in his stumbling progress and in that split second he hurled himself on the man. He swung Lederer off his feet with a ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, mighty upward surge away from that gun. And then with an effort designed to send the body hurtling to the ground, Cosgrove let him go and stood staggering with exertion— and with amazement. For the body of Lederer never reached the near-by earth! It was as though he had flung him into the air and seen him magically disappear. Swiftly upon leaving his hands, Lederer should have crashed to the rocky ground. But he did not. Cosgrove had hurled the man from him, and only a silence followed. It seemed that this silence lasted an eternity, as if Lederer hung suspended in the black air, invisible above him. Then came a hideous cry from in front of Cosgrove and below him. And from far below him there arose the horrible sound of a man’s body dashed with tremendous im- pact upon naked rock. With an exclamation of horror, Cosgrove moved forward in the blackness, a foot, a yard, and then he stopped. He stopped be- cause his outstretched leg reached into vacancy. And the uncanny truth dawned upon him. He had fought with Lederer upon the brink of an unseen precipice! CHAPTER XXXVI. OUT OF THE GRAY MORN, Wi FARLEY had sat in silence . while they drove him into Manford: For he was frightened. His befud- dled brain had not at first believed Cos- grove’s warning that the mob had turned against him. He had conceived Cosegrove’s intention of arresting him to be established upon revenge. Had he been in Cosgrove’s place, he knew that he would have done as much. Had he beaten an enemy as Cosgrove had beaten him, he would never have let the victory rest until he had followed up that beating with black ruin. So he had been convinced in his drink obscured mind that the arrest which Cosgrove had engineered was the vengeful kick that he himself would have dealt a fallen man. But, after Hazel Farley’s coming, the realization had begun to dawn upon him EGomiecbooks < oe ~ =f, ” SE MF : ~3* Sai, Hn ae eg Sn eS Pg we Og le, ~ ae —