Argosy All-Story Weekly, 4 February 1922 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

850 Quick as a flash Sir Philip had reloaded and aimed again. At the second shot the second horse threw his rider likewise; and, plunging and rearing, galloped away across the veldt, the saddle swinging beneath his belly. *“ Good shot!” cried Dean. “Vm an old hand,” responded Sir Philip calmly, as he loaded again. “ I’ve picked off my man at greater distances among the Afghan hills. But I aimed at the horses. Next time it will be the riders.”’ Lois tried to take the rifle from him. “Tt will be mutfder!” she cried. “ You can’t run that risk—” “Tt is worth it, Lois.” “It implicates Mr. Gervaise.” They looked at Dean. Dean glanced along the road. The horsemen were mio- ‘mentarily out of sight, and the wagon was descending the last slope into the plain. Hardly two miles below lay the Limpopo valley, heavily fringed with green, the waters of the river a shining streak in the sunlight. “Let us run for it!” cried Dean. Lois sprang to her father’s side, and, hand in hand, they raced along the road, Tietjens whipping the oxen furiously. The heavy cart rumbled and creaked behind them. . There came a crack, and the whine of a bullet overhead. A last spurt, and a des- perate one. Gasping, panting, Dean pulled Lois along. Sir Philip ran at his side, breathing like a man in the last lap of a Marathon. Dimly they sensed the oncom- ing horsemen. Dean ventured a glance _ backward. The police were almost upon the wagon. Then the foremost horse stum- bled and fell. The troop was forced to draw up; the road descended between high banks, and it was impossible for them to make a detour. 7 On! The broad Limpopo glistened be- fore them. Three-quarters of a mile, per- haps. Dean stopped and, drawing his re- volver, fired three times. Another horse went down. Again a moment of delay, precious beyond all the gold in Batakaland. A volley hissed above his head. Far in front of him he saw Lois and her father ~ running toward the river bank. But at this ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. very moment the police were thundering beside the cart. “Hands up!” shrieked a dozen voices in menacing chorus. Dean sprang back to where Tietjens, running beside the oxen, lashed them with his whip. He grasped the thongs that dan- gled from the leading yokes, and, with a wrench, suddenly pulled the oxen squarely across the road. So sudden was the maneuver that the police had no time to rem in. The lead- ing horses dropped in a tangle among the ozen, and those that followed piled up upon them. Through the whirl of flying hoofs, among which he had fallen, Dean saw Lois and Sir Philip running into the drift. They were free! The police dared not follow them into Mashonaland. And, wild with exultation, he scrambled out of the tangle, escaping the flying horse- hoofs by a miracle. Revolver in hand, he grasped at the bridle of a horse which had regained its footing and stood trembling upon the edge of one of the brush-grown _ nullahs—deep crevices running in all di- rections through the parched earth about the river banks, cut out in the wet season by the rains. As he tried to mount he saw a police- man aiming a carbine at him. He set his foot in the stirrup, and felt a stunning blow upon the head. The sound of the discharge went echoing into empti- ness as he plunged forward and fell into fathomless darkness. CHAPTER VIII. AN UNEXPECTED OFFER, EAN opened his eyes, to see the pale D light of dawn overhead through -the bushes. He could not remember what had happened to him, and for some minutes everything was dominated by the throbbing in his head, which was like a succession of fiery stabs. He put his hand up to his scalp and brought it away black with congealing blood. . Along the scalp was the groove of a su- perficial bullet wound. The impact had stunned him, and he must have lain more =comicbooks (elo)