Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

WHERE ALL me not to be able to justify myself to you with the facts that are in my possession, but until my -work is completed I cannot.” “ Nothing you could tell me would strengthen my faith in you, Victor. You have told me that what you did was neces- sary and your duty. And I do not wish to know more until you are free to tell me more. I know that it is something big and glorious for which you are working, and it. has been wonderful to me to think that I could help you in that work. I have helped, haven’t I, Victor?” For some time they talked together in low voices. Dave Barker and John Star- ling were never more than a few feet from the fire by which they sat, but they made no effort to overhear what was being said by Kent and his wife. Dave was silent and deeply puzzled by the culmination of the pursuit. John’s only remark, made in an undertone to the deputy sheriff, called forth no response. ‘“‘ Four into five hunderd is one hunderd and twenty-five. Don’t look like such a mighty big fortune after all, do it, old- timer?” CHAPTER XXIII. IN THE GRASP OF CIRCUMSTANCE. HERE were only a few men in Moose- ; yard who had at any time considered themselves friends of Edmund Scott. They were the flotsam deserted by the re- treating tide of prosperity on a ‘barren shore. In the days of prosperity they had cultivated the society of the banker as good business men should always do, but they had found him unresponsive and retiring, with his spare time occupied by interests that held little meaning for them. But when the first excitement over the murder of Hiram Swithen had subsided into a spirit of tense waiting for the return of the posses his figure walking its undeviat- ing route from the little house to the bank and from the bank to the house, at unvary- ing hours, was the object of much curious and sympathetic observation, and his affairs were discussed from many angles in Jones’s Hotel and in the general store. TRAILS END. 145 “Til tell ye he’s a fine man, is Edmund Scott,”’ said Bill Jones in a loud voice that was attuned for carrying its declarations above the racket and turmoil of a well- advanced evening in the Cobalt Bar. “ But he can’t stand it. Mark my words, he’s breaking up, even though he don’t show it. Mr. Swithen was a friend o’ his, and Kent was a friend o’ his, and his daughter was all he cared about outside the bank, I reckon.” McKay knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose to go. He buttoned his fur coat and pulled his cap down about his ears. ““T’m sorry for Scott,” he said, “ but there isn’t anything we can do to help him. I dropped in at his house the other evening, just to pay a social call, but he didn’t seem to want to talk—at least not about what you’d think he’d be most in- terested in. He had a far-away look in his eyes, but he usually did anyway, and he was always quiet. I don’t think he’s taking the thing as hard as you think, Jones. Anyhow, he brought it on himself, I guess. He made a lot of that Kent.” Robinson, who occupied his usual chair against the wall and outside of the circle of yellow light shed by the hanging oil- lamp, made no comment, but his whisky- fuddled brain still held a clear memory of the visit that he had paid to the house of Edmund Scott a few nights before. - He had made no attempt to talk: of the mur- der, for it did not greatly interest him, but had sat for an hour in a comfortable easy chair across the hearth from the man whom he had once met every day as a business acquaintance, but of whom he had seen or thought little for a long time. Edmund Scott had talked a little, on what subjects Robinson could not recollect, and they had smoked. - Robinson was not observant, so he had failed to read the signs of suffering and strain that were engraved unobtrusively but inevitably upon the countenance of the banker. The eye of a trained character analyst would also have found there indi- cations of determination and_ will-power somewhat foreign to that environment. But these things had escaped the visitor. He had come only with kindly motives, had COMmiclboo SS C©