The Argosy, April 1916 — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

FOOLS OF could not see Ransom’s huge figure sink on his knees as Danforth was coming up the ladder. Nor, when his head appeared above the floor, could they see the overseer catch Danforth under one arm and whisper a few swift words into his ear. The man on the ladder tottered. The strength oozed from his hands, which clung limp to the rung. Ransom got a grip under Danforth’s other arm and fairly dragged him up to the floor. “I was afraid you might trip, it’s so dark,” Ransom said, again speaking aloud. At the same time he practically led Dan- forth by the arm past the curtain to the table where Jake and Pete sat expectant. Without being able to formulate ‘their impression precisely both Jake and the sail- or felt that a change had somehow come over Danforth since their introductory meeting. His suave, intrepid air had vanished. He seemed very thoughtful, restless, wary, and glanced toward Ransom occasionally as if the overseer held him in some sort of sub- jection. | The ship’s carpenters guessed. that Mother Juliet had been talking matters over with him while he was in the cellar and that he had decided to knuckle down as abjectly as formerly he had seemed ready, in their minds, to try to boss the whole Setthement. “In the course of a few days,” Ransom began, ‘‘we shall want you to do some busi- ness for us with him that can best be man- aged by an outsider like you. I suppose you’re willing?” — Danforth looked toward the overseer as toward a superior and powerful person whom he rather dreaded. “Why, of course,” he answered. anything that’s right. 4g “Well, my friends,’’ Ransom laughed, ad- dressing Jake and Pete, “‘it looks to me as though we and Mr. Danforth can under- stand each other after that.” “Tt looks,” Jake agreed, turning for some expression from Sailor Pete. “T been thinkin’ it looks, too,’’ Pete ob- served, getting up from his chair. “Then in about three days,” said Ran- som, ‘‘we’ll set to work on this job.” Amid a general exchange of “Good night!’’ Pete led the way out of the cottage, followed by Jake Haas. They were at a thoroughly safe remove “PI do SACRIFICE. from Ransom’s before they broke into talk of their own. Sailor Pete desired Jake to say why he had not asked the overseer how Danforth had managed to land on the island. Jake confessed that he had been itching to put this question and had refrained only because he felt sure Ransom would lie about it. “So he yuss would,” Pete grunted. “Say,” Jake wondered after a while of silence, “you know I got a kind a suspicion that feller Danforth’s afraid of Ransom. Not at first yet I didn’t have it, but when I seen him better by the lamp on the table so soon he comes up from the cellar the second time already. What you think?” ‘“T been thinkin’ he’s William’s man all right, not our man,” Sailor Pete responded. “And I been thinkin’, too, I’m for bed soon’s I’m home.” CHAPTER XVII. THE PEACEMAKER. gece problem whether Danforth was Ran- som’s man or not was threshed out be- tween the stranger and the overseer under the latter’s roof. “Tf you’d like to see your room—” Ran- som proposed some ten minutes after the others had left. “TI suppose I do need sleep,” Danforth admitted, “but I'll tell you frankly, Mr. Ransom, I’d rather be at the thanks of some one else than you for the hospitality of my night’s lodging.” ‘Don’t misunderstand me, please,’ the overseer protested with a faint trace of ob- sequiousness in his manner. “I had no wish to frighten you, but—”’ “Frighten me! Frighten me!’ Danforth laughed. ‘‘After what I’ve been through? ‘Frighten me’ is good!” Ransom’s small eyes became smaller. His thin lips clapped shut like a snap-purse on the words he was about to utter. “Mr. Ransom,” Danforth went on, “Tl admit you did take me by surprise when I came up the ladder. Yet as I have been at one time put on show, at another put under cover, like a Jack-in-the-box ever since I came to this island, I ought to be used to it. “But you, Mr. Ransom, hurt my feelings, in fact—I may as well say it right out—you struck at me, at a moment when I couldn’t strike back, with a dastard insult.” “How so? How so?” the overseer de- comicloool 127 C@