The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAN WHO MUST BE HANGED. doned hope: His only relief was in_up- braiding the district attorney. ‘“‘ He’s gone for good this time,” he said. “We'll never see kim again. Why didn’t you keep your head—say? What made you get in the way of my gun?” ‘“T don’t know why I did that,” McRae replied. ‘It was an impulse that came to me. If I had had time to think, I should never have done that.” Yes; if there had been time for reflec- tion, he would have done all in his power to get Lord hanged by the neck till he was dead. What force had compelled him, then, to let himself be shot in the bandit’s stead? He did not know. He got to his feet and walked toward the cabin, holding out the injured arm, from which a little blood dripped. The wound was, as he had said, scarcely more than a scratch. The shouts of the pursuers now sounded far away, and the dogs yelped in baffied tones. Evidently they had found no trace of the quarry. McRae had saved him. Yet he felt this issue he had dodged must be faced some day. He would yet have to decide Lord’s fate. The news of Lord’s capture had gone over the county, and the watchers at the railroad stations had been called in. It was the hour for escape. Before the watchers could be at their posts again, the fugitive had caught a freight at Millico. This took him over the Wyoming line before morning. For two days he lay out on the prairie. Then the February thaw was over; a cold wind blew over the range, and he ventured to a Wyoming railroad station. Here he was not molested. He boarded a north-bound train. A week later he crossed the Canadian border. CHAPTER VIII. THE DUMB BEAST. SUNSHIN E poured into a pleasant little flat in a large Canadian town. Hilairy liked sunshine at her windows. Lord had taken the flat a week before her coming because it was such a charming one. And 49 he had bought something to hold the roses he would have for her to see when he opened the door for her. Nobody had questioned him since he came from the States. It was quite safe for her to come now and marry him. Suddenly he thought he could feel her in his arms; her head on his breast, his lips in her hair. He leaned against the pretty mantel shelf in that room which was to be hers. He came to himself after a moment, with his arms clasped about empty air. His arms ached emptily. Then he laughed aloud. ° In one week and one day he would see her. Then there would be nothing lacking to him that a man can have. Money came easily; nobody questions the past of a man who can play. His mother had been a Frenchwoman, and he went by the name of “ Louis Lecoq ” at the theaters. When Hilairy came, he thought they had better go up into Alaska, where the miners would be even more certain to ask no credential beyond his fiddle. The prospect was perfect—but for his shadow. He would not have told any one about that shadow of fear which constantly pursued him. It was not fear of the law— he seldom thought about that—but some- thing fantastic and absurd. And now, with everything going well, as he stood alone in the room he had ready for his bride, the shadow leaped at him, and all but got its fangs into him. He began to do a futile thing; to go over all the things that had happened at Ka- hokia, and justify himself. First he had been locked up on that absurd charge of beating a board-bill. How could he endure the humiliation of being punished for re- fusing to pay an extortionate charge? He had not known that Schwartz and Slim were plotting to escape; but that night, when he saw the outer door open and the sheriff bound and gagged, he had seen his chance as he was loose in the corridor. He did not really repent that he had run then. But there was one thing he could not justify: he ought not to have taken poor Pinhead—otherwise ‘Happy Appleby.” Happy, with his small head and big bedy, oO Comicbooe S CO