Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

aRGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. e amusement Harrison had with life. Al- -h would open 20 . lightly as @ play- d, they haunted isiv those eves been S 5: though eyes, ° " fooked on her rang, still as the days PASS d more. vet. in the wholesome qu there was 2 i it might “iw but she knew that ! of tra deceptive calm that goes before oT the hills roundabout, where dwelt families of a dozen surnames, but all Mur- irits were an adherence, two spit! rls by ¢ the outcome be- tively at work and meee fo the future. Strong men n° Enoch Wade and Covey Smal] were preac- ing with deep-hearted earnestness that to break away from the guidance of Wade Murtell would be to make of the clan a scattered herd without a watch dog. It would leave them ripe for devastating at- tack of enemy wolves united in a predatory, close-knit pack. Another spigit, infected by the virus of early slander, clung obdurately to its first impression and fretted. That spirit in- sisted that Wade Murrell, the pious, had imported and was living in sin with a paint- ed Jezebel, a strumpet, a woman without shame, a pariah in petticoats. It asserted that righteousness had gone out of him and his leadership was dead. The elements that had chafed most impatiently against keep- ing the truce, the elements that had leaned o va stubbornness toward lawlessness ow the elements that raised hands in oly horro virae t at this alleged affront to Civic But as yet that fermenta nea € Surface, tion was all be- and to outward sreni- an quitter, a human she Yet she shudders Sach wild sys oe Tealized th nothing ole’ Of terror She =a 5 else. She coulg have locked door of. death. Ip life not been recklessly generous — Man by Still, now that he was onal stood in the seeming of his e, and be could not help rememberin ID, gh, in him that had laid so strong ¢ li | UPoy ! her. In her own fashion she Was ing for him. Mou “ Thar’s a goin’ ter be q fr,); derly dancin’. party come see in over ter Murrell Coates’s,” y Th e CC Erie one day. “ Me an’ Wade, we oc ter tote ye over thar fer ther fun» “Do you think I’d better po?” the girl dubiously. “I’m not in such nel good standing with some of the people He will be there, am I?” ' A“ Thet’s fer why we ‘lowed ye'd betip, aim ter go,’ the older woman told he decisively. “We don’t seek ter’ let folks opine we’re ashamed of ye—an’ moreover Wade, he sots master store by facin’ things out plumb straight-eyed. He says thet tha hain’t but one body thet’s done ‘seed ye face ter face thet hain’t come right round ter be yore friend—an’ thet one body's Lesher Skidmore. He won’t be at no Mu- rell frolic.” The girl’s gray-green eyes clouded ap- prehensively. Out of those eyes had gone much of the self-sufficient flippancy of @ week or two ago. Into them had come the new-born seriousness of one who is be ginning to question many shallow concepls hitherto accepted without challenge. “Of course, I'll go if you think I'd bet: ter,” she said. ‘ But I don’t expect to & much kick out of it—unless it’s the back- kick of being scared green.” F “When ye gits thar an’ heers ther - dles scrapin’,” Aunt Erie assured ne “ye'll feel anticky enough, I'll be boune: Ye’re young an’ hit’s in nature fer yours gals ter feel gayly at a frolic.” - It was in’ 2 jolst wagon ” that ther drove those stony miles to the hous? Murrell Coates. and To Cynthy Stokes, despite her at nad despite the fact that Wade Mure trip sat on the driver’s box throughout © ie Mm an unbroken taciturnity, the ce into 8 Inquire announced Aunt | upon that scene was like entrar eomlstBboo SS Co