Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

288 ; which ran to Manford, a wild roar mingled the fatal sentence with the cries of an ani- mal thirsting for blood. Up the main street dashed two cars and horsemen followed, a mob in furious haste. They dismounted from their cars and horses before the doors of the jail. _ “ Where is he?” * Farley!” “ Bring him out!” “Farley! Farley! Farley!” The roar of the mob came in dull thun- der to the wretched prisoner in Neal’s bar- ren house. It mingled with the reiterated menace of the deadly words Farley had him- self designed, pounding clamorously upon his shaken mind, driving him from a frenzy of despair into a hell of madness. He paced the room with catlike strides, up and down, back and forth, fending him- self from the walls, madly incapable of thought; blind, deaf and impenetrable by all save the death howl of the mob and that persistent, terrible sentence, ‘‘ In the event of death!” He hardly sensed the quiet spell which marked the slim moment that Slade held the mob, addressing it. He hardly heard the sharp cries with which that priceless silence was broken. But he heard the sub- dued roar that followed as they surged for- ward for the jail, and even in his mad fear, which occupied all his faculties and all his mind, he heard the bellow of Slade’s voice which rose above it. With that he stopped his furious pacing and, rushing to the window, strove to see something of what passed. There was a silence outside—the besiegers were taking council. There was a dim glow of morn- ing and dark knots of figures at the end of the street where stood the jail. Farley peered out like an animal furtively peering from its den, and a cunning thought came to rack his mind. Why could he not escape? Escape? Why could he not creep out and run! Run with all the speed and energy of his body? Run away into the prairie? Run and run? Al- ways avoiding them? Always before them? Why could he notebreak through that glass? Up the street and away from them? It was the impulse of the animal, and Pee ON Tye — oe =e Te ae oe PO <_< 2e po Sapte, Oe gh en ee nn, ee ea ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, beyond that point Farley was no longer sane. For this reason, it did not occur to him to throw the window open. He turned into the room and seized a chair with which he shattered the glass and casing. Then he would have leaped out, but as he prepared to do this, three riders came cantering up the street. With an inartic- ulate cry he ducked backward, throwing himself upon the floor. But they did not notice the house, they passed on, intent upon some strategy of the mob. And then through the shattered window came the boom of a high, impassionate voice, a voice which reached him from the dim distance where the jail was. “Tf you don’t get out o’ the way, Slade, take the consequences! ” And the bellowing thunder of Slade’s reply: “Tf you take him, somebody hangs for it! In the event of this man’s death—”’ With a scream Farley flung himself be- hind a decrepit couch at the side of the room, sobbing and cursing in his mad fear of that insistent sentence. And while he sobbed, Christofferson and his men rode into Sheerwater and the mob scattered, Sweeping up the street past the house where their quarry lay; thundering, cursing, rag- ing as they clattered by. And Farley did not hear them, nor did he associate the clamor of their passage with aught but the clamorous noises which dinned in his shattered mind. All that awoke him from that tortured trance was the entrance of Neal who came in, grin- ning apathetically. ‘‘ Christofferson’s in with a load of men from Manford,”’ he said. ‘“ The mob’s scat- tered for a while.” All of which Farley heard without comprehension, glaring at the marshal with the fixity of madness. “ They say Cosgrove’s back in Manford and Led- erer’s dead. Smashed to a jelly in a fight with Cosgrove! For God’s sake!” The cry was wrung from him as Farley plunged with a shriek upon his throat. “Say that again! Say it! Curse you! Damn you! Say that again!” Farley screamed out his malediction while he thrust the man free of his mad grasp. Neal staggered back against the door jamb, and 8A a— - comicbooks:« >, Sa > _~= My a a ae oo —~: ns ~ Se an td Le mn len eo ae Se a ee ee SS et Le Pe a a ee ey ee ee ae ee Cet ee — Spe al