Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

204 niches. He found no trace and cursed himself, for when he stopped to think, he could not be sure that Johnny had left the train when he did. A few cautious inquiries settled that point; Johnny had been seen, sitting on the hillside and watching the fight along with Gahagan and the Professor. Next he combed the village as well as he could, walked up the one street and down a dozen times, looked into the movie, hung about the hotel-for an hour, and then came back to the quarry, ashamed of his seive- like brain. Instead of bunking in the cav- ern he dozed by the fire, thinking that the lad might turn up in the night, and in the long dark hours he saw certain con- clusions looming ahead of him which he chose to ignore. One was that he was a worthless hobo, who could not keep a prom- ise to an old man, and the other was that if Johnny had got away, the Professor and Gahagan were somehow mixed in it. So he dozed and sat awake alternately until dawn, when a stirring by the fire brought him to his feet. He stamped to get the warmth into his legs and nodded to a negro who was kneeling by the fire and’ propping a can among the embers. Spring- time nodded to the newcomer and said: ‘““What’s the dope?” ) ‘‘ Bad,” said the black man as he rolled his eyes; “ bad.” ‘“Veah?” said Springtime, and awaited something amusing.” “I’ve seen one bad sight. I’ve seen a cohpse up the line with a seegah stuck so fast in his mouth it had to be pried out with a chisel!” Like a flash of searing light it came over Springtime just who it was that the black man had seen. “God!” he said. “ Not Bender!” “Vas, suh,” returned the black man as he drew away from Springtime at this ex- hibition of supernatural knowledge, “ that was him. An ole acrobat that used to travel aroun’ with a lil boy. Sho, it was him. I I come into a bahn lookin’ foh a place to kip, and I didn’t have no matches, and I blundahed into a lil room and laid me down. I felt somebody right then next to me and I said: ’Scuse me,’ and moved ovah. He didn’t say nothin’ and shoh I knowed ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. he was daid! I crope out and got a light off ’um the fiah and come back and shoh enough there he was—daid with that seegah struck between his teeth. “TI didn’t stop none—I lighted out and I woke up that jungle with yellin’ and they sent somebody along to town. ’Long about daylight out comes a doctah and a man with the ambulance, and the doctah looks at the cohpse and says: ‘I knowed him—his name’s Bendah, and I tole him not to smoke no seegahs. Killed hisself smoking that black seegah! They took him away, an’ I’ve been travelin’ blind to git away from theah! Oh, Lawd!’ ” Two hours later Springtime was ten miles from the quarry. He knew as clearly as he knew his own name that Bender had killed himself intentionally, wiped himself out be- cause, without Johnny, life for him was not worth living. And in that flash he saw, too, that Gahagan and the Professor were re- sponsible for the boy’s disappearance; every word and flattering look which they had cast at the boy became suddenly significant. Which way they had gone he could not tell; it was only by casting rings around the quarry that he could pick up the trail. There would be no trouble with the Pro- fesor once théy met; but there was every reason to think that Gahagan would put up a fight. It would be a good fight, with a fair chance of permanent crippling, or even death, in it for himself, but it had been Bender’s dream that the boy should go straight. Springtime, the easy going, the man who had been everybody’s friend, felt himself becoming hard as steel. CHAPTER VII. SPRINGTIME’S GAG. UCKILY for his good intentions, he found a hot trail. The boy was so con- spicuous that it was easy to follow him—so easy that he ran past the three twice. The Professor, like the old fox that he was, was doubling on his own tracks, for he had not yet made up his mind as to just which career he would start Johnny on first. When he talked to the lad about go- comicboooks C©