Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

THROW UP YOUR HANDS. want to live. Take yore old forty-five and drill me—right here!”’ “Va mean it, lad?” “T’m askin’ ya, man to man, to end my sufferin’s. Ya’ve been a true friend to me all my life, Friday Pepper; don’t go back on me now. Do an act of kindness and git it over with quick!” Friday Pepper reluctantly drew his old forty-five. “Tt don’t seem right to lop down a young feller like you who ain’t had th’ chance yit to know th’ fun thar is in life. But ll do as ya, say, lad. Ya want th’ bullet to enter yore heart clean. I'll put it thar!” “ Quick, Friday!” “ All right, son, all right.” And slowly rising from his knees, the old mountaineer dashed the tears from his eyes, cocked the hammer and took careful aim. Red Wilpin closed his eyes. “ Shoot!” he gasped. A woman’s terrified scream shattered the tense silence. “Help!” she screamed. “ Help!” CHAPTER XXXIX, ALIVE OR DEAD. RIDAY lowered the forty-five and F looked bewilderedly about him, but the scream had, strangely, seemed to come from somewhere aloft. His startled gaze went up to the top of the water tower. A white face surmounted by a crop of dark bobbed hair was visible at the rim. “Wall, whut in Sam Hill,” he roared, “are ya doin’ up thar?” “I came up here to commit suicide,” she wailed, ‘“‘ but there’s a lid on it.” “ Ain’t they a trap door?” “No! Not even a crack! And it Slopes! And I’m getting dizzier and diz- zier. I must have fainted,” “Wall, come on down.” “But I’m too exhausted to! And I don't want to come down. Larry is dead. ee think I'll just jump and end it all.” Slowly Larry struggled up to a Sitting Position. 911 “Hey, Margie,” he called, “ don’t jump. T ain't dead!” She did not reply. Instead, her hands, which had been clasping the rim of the tank, slipped downward until her arms hung limply. She had fainted again. ; Larry jerked his thumb toward the lad- er. “Climb up and bring her down, Friday.” The old mountaineer backed hastily away. “Me?” he shrilled. “ You know how them heights give me vertigo, Red Wilpin. Risk my life fer_that gal? Not much I don’t! Let her stay up there. It’s the safest place she’s been in yit. Ain’t done nothin’ since we took up with her but t’ git us into hot water. Let well enough alone, is my motto.” Slowly, with a great effort, the red- haired bandit arose to his feet and tottered to the ladder. “ Don’t be a durn fool!” Friday shouted He laid a restraining hand on the young man’s elbow, but Larry Wilpin struck it aside. Rung by rung the young outlaw climbed, the rain swirling about him, the world swimming in a dark, reeling mist. He gripped his lower lip with his teeth until the blood came, and so fought back the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. But he reached the iron roof of the stand- pipe at Jast, lifted the unconscious girl in one arm and started the descent. How far below him the ground seemed! And it was peopled with grotesque dancing shapes. In his imagination, he believed, he Saw a monstrous black mass rising beyond the eastern mountains and sweeping for- wards like some gigantic bird of prey. He heard faintly the thin, entreating voice of Friday Pepper. “ Hang on, kid, yo’re a slippin’!” He would hang on! He would! And he did! Finally a numb heel sank with a gurgling sound into the oozy ground. Then. blackness swept back upon him, and he fell with a great splash. Red Wilpin returned to consciousness and a sound of shouting wind. Overhead. the black mass he had imagined he saw sweeping up from the eastern hills, was COnniEaoo () SS Co