The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

THE FLYING CHANCE. Nor was he overskilful about it. He was just wise enough to hold his peace and to squeeze her outstretched hand with 2 world of meaning. Her surrender was instant and complete. With radiant eyes in which there was just a hint of tears, she led him to the comfortable hammock, plethoric with puil- lows, which swung in the veranda breeze. “IT know it’s an awfully big thing to have asked you, Jack,” she comforted him with the half regretful confidence of a big- hearted girl who has just forced a sacrifice from her lover. ‘‘ But you understand now haw I felt about it, don’t you, dear? I just couldn’t marry you as long as you stayed in that horrible business. ‘“‘T could never sleep without seeing that awful grand stand and that freld where poor Bob— Oh, I can’t bear to think about it. And with Jim sticking to it yet; he’s so obstinate. One in the family is bad enough. I just couldn’t bear it, Jack.” Rankin just patted the round curve of her shoulder and still said nothing. Bob was one of the many who had paid the toll to the greatest of all games; Jim was the other brother. Rankin understood how the girl felt, and the scrupulous conscience which besets every decent young man when he is in love smote him. Almost he confessed. But when a beau- tiful, tearful girl jumps to 2 conclusion and makes a self-sacrificing hero out of one, how shall a man who is ordinarily human disillusion her? Jack Rankin stifled the still, small voice and postponed the telling to a vague, more propitious future. Suf- ficient to the day the evil thereof. He would have trouble enough explaining his absence from the navy-yard, sheuld his commanding officer by any chance look for him before his return. In the mean while, there were matters of infinitely greater im- portance. Given a beautiful girl, a hammock, and the impending prospect of an indefinite separation, three o’clock in the afternoon arrives all too soon. When Ensign Rankin came to the officers’ mess, hurrying to make up for lost time, and trying to carry off an air of innocence as if he had been looking for his chief for quite a while, a couple of juniors looked furtively at him. 1g His guilty conscience was quick to catch the glance, and he knew that his nemesis had overtaken him. But of the full viru- lence of its malice he had no inkling as yet. “Seen anything of my skipper?” he asked with an assumption of ease. “No,” said one of them shortly. ‘““Not for hours and hours,” added the other with equally ominous brevity. ‘Hours and hours?” “Yes. He was looking for you. Making knots all round the yard.” “ Why so anxious?” ‘“Commandant’s locking for you now.” Rankin hid his anxiety by threatening to slay the last speaker. ‘But why? Why? Let me in on the mystery, won’t you?” ‘‘ Leggo, you deserting ruffian! Why? Because your ship put out from her berth under telegraphic orders at just about five bells this afternoon. That’s why. Now you’d better go hide till you can think up a good excuse.” Smash! The bomb had fallen! No wonder the whole navy-yard had been looking for him. Missing ship was a se- rious enough thing in itself; and when it had happened in the face of direct orders it became a matter fer the outraged atten- tion of the commandant himself, with pros- pects of court martial looming dark in the immediate background. Even Rankin sensed that he had offend- ed beyond his realization. With the instinct of quick thinking which is so essential to the man who takes his life up into the shifting air currents, his mind flashed to the wireless plant. Perhaps he would be able to communicate. with his commanding officer and rejoin at the first port of call.. He made the radio station in just two jumps. The operator saluted him quite hastily. " “Yes, sir. Crowded with official busi- ness just now, sir; but I’ll be able to put your. message through in about fifteen minutes. Where. can I send the answer, sir? I guess I’ll have no trouble pickin’ up your ship.” “His ship” again. The words jarred with an indefinable sensation. It conveyed oO comicbooks CO