Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

vronz about that either. But when Allan grabbed Babe and pulled her over to him - jin a manner that was too coarse for even a woman of her type to stand, he revealed to Harper the sort of man he was. The sheriff was minded to arrest him then and there, but he withheld his hand. Despite the fact that Allan had not gone to the typing office, Harper still believed that he was sought by Alice. He would wait a while longer and see what would happen. It happened quickly enough. When Babe pulled away from him, Allan rose and walked to the open front door and stood there looking across the street. Harper’s table was close to this door. He watched the fellow closely. Allan looked across the street casually. Suddenly he uttered an ejaculation and stood staring as though he had seen a ghost. ‘* Who—who’s that across there?” Allan asked this of a bystander. Harper heard him quite clearly. “ Ain't you heard of her?” replied the other. ‘‘ Where you been, anyhow? That’s the new girl that writes letters for every- body and begs them to get in touch with their people.” “God in Heaven!”’ Allan muttered. Harper knew only too well what Allan was thinking, and for the first time in his life he was sorry because he had reasoned out something correctly. In a moment Allan crossed the street. Harper let him go. Hardened man-hunter as he was, he did not quite have the heart to apprehend the man that Alice Juno had come here to find before she had a chance to speak to him. He stood in the doorway of the Lone Star and watched Allan enter the typing office. He would wait until the man came out, then step across and click handcuffs on his wrists. In her office, Alice was unusually busy that evening. A patron sat close beside her desk, dictating in a low tone that only she could hear, becaues of the clatter made by her racing type-bars. Seated along the wall, like customers in a barber shop, others read or thought out their messages while = their turns. Being a touch typist, and there was nothing particularly as all ao the person, nodding and n ing line if she did mot. Suddenly she gasped, and he + gers faltered for the first time arrival in Geyser. Rodney Allan the doorway. He recognized her at the stant that she recognized him, and started toward her, an eager light in his ey es, a glad smile of recognition on his features. But it was no part of Alice’s plan that the public, and eventually the sheriff, should — know that Allan was any more to her than any other railroad worker. She shook her head and frowned at him. He stopped short. She indicated the line of chairs and he grasped her message. He took his place there and she transferred her attention back to her work. She flushed with chagrin as she found that, in the ecstasy of Allan’s arrival, her fingers had lost touch with her brain and she had written meaningless words. She was compelled to stop her customer, erase the words, and ask him to dictate his last sentences over again. But he did so with- out realizing that anything unusual had happened. Nobody in the room knew it. Only a single person, Sheriff Jim Harper, had noticed the little drama, and he was outside, looking through an open window. It was an ordeal for Alice to write letters for all the men who were there before Al- lan entered. She did not even have the satisfaction of looking at him, since the line of chairs was behind her. One by one her customers dictated their letters and went out, until finally Allan’s turn came to sit close beside her. Others had entered after him and were now awaiting their tum in the same manner that he had. Alice had regained her composure, and, except for a wonderful look that she flashed at the man beside her, her treatment of him was apparently no different from her treat- ment of others. She asked whom he wished to write to Allan gave a name in the ordinary am then her typewriter clattered even lou than for the last man. The noise that it made was her only reason for eperatjn: ay