The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 211: what you’re looking at

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

PAY-DAY IN PALAOR. threatening. The moist air seemed stationary. The wide-winged vampire bats sensing the brewing storm, flitted wildly among the trees, bruising their ratlike bodies against trunk and branch, brushing with their hot, noisome breath against the cheek of the wayfarer, and swinging by their taloned. wing-tips or hind feet, head downward,. from the clustering foliage overhanging the trail, Julian was satisfied—the steamer, the dark, screening night, all favored his project. He assured himself that the bandits were in ambush, chose the place from which he would jump be- hind Marker, and waited for Gabriel’s signal. Gabriel had posted himself where he could watch the lieutenant’s house without risk of disturbance or detec- tion. He yawned with weariness as an hour passed without Marker. show- ing himself. Then, just as he was becoming impatient at the delay, he saw the familiar white dress uniform of his officer, the red shoulder-straps, with their broad gold bars, the gleaming buttons and buckle of the belt. The campaign hat, with its broad brim, was tilted forward, partly screening the face—a habit of the lieutenant’s which Gabriel remembered. He hud- dled back in the brush and hooted in imitation of an owl. He heard the doomed man stride past him, all unconscious of danger. Gabriel followed at a safe distance, gradually drawing closer. He was just in time to see the pantherlike spring of Julian, the knife upraised and lowered like a flash. He heard a sharp cry of pain and saw the wounded man turn and grapple with Julian. Then, as he ran forward, the bolomen swarmed into the trail. The white uniform was spattered with blood, but its bleeding wearer was uppermost, Julian’s knife gripped in his hand and the*blade pointed at the mestizo’s heart. Neither Gabriel nor the bandits 681 were quick enough to avert the blow. But the renegade glimpsed a slight figure crossing the trail and running toward the gate of Miss Edwards’s bungalow. Gabriel was just in time to trip and seize the intruder. He _ recognized Dick Edwards and feared that the lad might give the alarm. He gripped-the boy by the throat. Dick’s eyes glared as he recognized the soldier and realized his treachery. _ Bracing his weak muscles with all his might, he caught at the knife in Gabriel’s belt, slashed the brown man’s hands, and freed himself. He glanced at the other combatants and groaned with grief and anger. Five bolos were slashing the last vestige of life out of the prone body in the white uniform slit to ribbons and revealing ghastly wounds. He was too late, he told himself, to help his friend. His sister’s danger gave him speed and strength. He swung through the gate, ran up the path, and collided with Edith, pale and frightened, on the veranda: “That cry, Dick—the noise! What has happened? ” The boy, sick with sorrow and anx- iety, drew his sister from the exposed front of the house. He was white, and Edith realized that something ter- rible must have happened. The boy Saw that if he was to save his sister he must act first and tell her the truth later. “ Bandits,” he whispered. ‘“ Get Paulina. We must escape at. once by the back way. We haven’t as much as a bolo or revolver here. The only chance 1s to get to the post and rout out the constabulary.” Edith was quite calm now. - She had read in Dick’s face, as he sprang upon the veranda, the knell of all her hopes. The hour, the tryst for which she had been about to leave the bunga- low, the screams and clash of. steel out beyond the gate, her knowledge that the hill bandits were again in a danger- ous mood, the recent murder and the COMicdoo S CO@