Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

‘Harper until they grasped the situation, then flung themselves upon the mob that kept inching forward as steadily as Harper : treating. ae scene at followed was probably the wildest that had ever occurred in that theater of many disorderly affairs. Fists swung on every side, curses mingled with groans, tables crashed to the floor, women screamed, pandemonium reigned. One of the big hanging oil lamps was struck by a chair swung high overhead by some frantic battler, and fell, blazing, to the floor. A fire started in some tawdry draperies and everybody made for the doors. All at once Alice realized that she was safe and that Harper was by her side. His arm was around her shoulder. Somehow it gave her a delicious feeling of security. Her battle was at an end. She wanted to rest. She wondered where her husband was. She wanted to ask, but she could not. A feeling of drowsiness was overpowering her. She fainted. The fighting ceased as the blaze inside grew. There was no attempt to save the Lone Star by the men who had just arrived from the camp. In fact they yelled their approval of its destruction just as the mob had previously cheered the burning of the jail. Harper shouted orders to them to get pails from Blundell’s store and form a bucket brigade to wet down the buildings adjacent to the dance hall and thus keep the fire from spreading. They began to carry out his orders, and then he carried Alice across to her door, which he burst open since he did not have the key, and laid her on her couch. Babe came stumbling in at that moment, breathing like a broken bellows. “ Is—is she hurt?” she gasped. “ No,” said Harper. “ Just fainted. All right in a minute. Stay here with her till I come back, will you?” Babe was very willing to do this, and Harper left the office. He saw that the fire was being brought under control, and he proceeded shakily to the residence of the railroad doctor, stationed in the village, where he had the slight but painful bullet wound in his shoulder dresced. ‘“‘ Where is Mr. Harpe “He'll be back in a little v told her. —_ “My husband— do you knaw an about him?” 7 “Not a thing, dearie—— except that i Harper is back your husband is back too.” “Who brought the men from the camp — here, Babe?”’ ore “T did,” said the dance-hall woman proudly. Tears softened her hard eyes. “ You—you got me writing to my mother, dearie,”’ she said. ‘ I—I’d do anything for you.” Alice looked at her. “You are too good for the kind of life you are leading, Babe,” she said. The woman cried softly. “Too late now,” she said. “ I can’t get away from it. The best I can do is keep sending money to mother and think up new lies about how well I’m doing in a department store.” Alice looked at the woman again. A great question was in her mind now. Those assertions of the men in the Lone Star that her husband was a rotter—could they have a basis of truth? Why had Harper asked her if she was quite sure her husband was true to her? She recollected various little acts of Rodney Allan that, in the light of this new and terrible possibility, seemed a bit suspicious. “ Babe,” she said, “ you wouldn’t lie to me like those men in the saloon, would you?” Babe seized her hand. “So help me God, I won’t.” “Then tell me, Babe—you know what goes on in the Lone Star—is my husband, Mr. Allan, anything—anything like those men said he was?’ Babe burst out sobbing. “Is he?” Alice clutched the woman’s arm. Babe nodded. Alice sank back on her couch and for a moment lay there in silent misery. Then she whispered: “ Tel] me—all about ite please.” - Babe braced up. “ Only this evening wanted me to beat it to Mexico with him. (eovag) ri @ b ee) CS) |G