Then suddenly the “Kid’s” whirling senses cleared. Billy the Strangler had done for him; but he would send Billy on ahead, to tell St. Peter he was coming! His yellow teeth came together. He felt something welling up in his throat and spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Not—much—time—left!” he muttered.
He dropped to his knees and for a moment everything went blank. Then he mastered himself, by a superhuman effort: and began to crawl stealthily along toward the dimly-lighted panel of the door. The Strangler had run out there after firing—now, undoubtedly, he was waiting till it should be safe for him to come back for his booty!
Slowly, the dying crook dragged himself across to the door and out into the hall. The training of a lifetime stood him in good stead now: he was as soundless as a shadow. He reached the top of the stairs and paused, leaning for a moment against the banisters—everything was going black before him. Then he pulled himself together with a disregard for his own suffering that in a better cause would have been heroic.
Inch by inch, he drew himself forward till he was sitting on the top step of the stair. He peered down into the lighted rooms below. Ah! There he was! The Strangler stood beyond the big chandelier in the front room, the “Kid” could see him plainly through an open door. His face was smiling, the crooked smile of a shark.
Resting his automatic across his bent knees, the “Kid” took steady aim at the man who had done for him.
“A little higher than the pockets!” he told himself, repeating the old gunman’s formula for a killing shot.
Next moment the pistol roared; and the man standing down there in the light jerked up his hands and staggered backward. Greedily, the “Kid’s” fast glazing eyes drank in every detail of the Strangler’s agony. He knew what that look meant—
Billy the Strangler began to pivot on his heels, staring with blind eyes into space.
“Where is he?” he cried. “Damn your soul and body—you—”
He pitched forward to his face. And the “Kid,” leaning peacefully back, felt himself snatched up into a great red cloud that has descended out of the roof upon him.
* * * * *
In an upper room in the house of Ah Wing, the Chinaman sat at an instrument that resembled a telephone switchboard. There were on its surface eight little globes, each with a plug socket beneath.
Ah Wing had an operator’s head-piece in position, and he seemed to be listening attentively to something that came to him over the wires.
There had been voices, loud and angry. He heard the Strangler denouncing the “Kid.” Then came the shot—and silence.
Ah Wing waited an appreciable time, then shifted the plug from socket to socket. Not a sound from any of the rooms in the distant cottage. He returned the plug to its central position and waited.
Presently another shot sounded, and a scream. He heard the Strangler curse his enemy.
Without a word, Ah Wing removed the head-piece and glanced up at a chart fastened to the wall before him. It contained the names of five men, against one of which a black cross had been inscribed.
Now he picked up a pencil and filled in two additional crosses.
There were but two of the Wolves left!
_This Fascinating Story Has An Amazing Climax. It Will Be Concluded in the Next Issue of WEIRD TALES. Tell Your Newsdealer To Reserve Your Copy._
Snatched from the Grave, Woman Tells of Death
A weird adventure befell Mrs. Rafaela Mercurio, an Omaha woman who, after apparently dying, awoke in the land of the living instead of the spirit world. After her physician had pronounced her dead, her life was restored by an injection of adrenalin, administered by Dr. W. A. Gerrie.
To all outward appearance, she was quite dead. There was no indication of breathing or heart action. Prayers for the dead were started in the bed chamber where her body lay.
Then Dr. Gerrie injected the gland extract in her heart, and after several days she showed signs of returning life. Upon regaining consciousness, she was confused and puzzled, uncertain, it seemed, whether she was alive or dead. Later she described her strange experience.
“I could feel death pulling me,” she said. “I was slipping. I tried to find something to hold to, but could not. I felt far away and alone, yet it seemed there was something I must do before I slipped entirely away.
“I had just a few minutes. I must straighten out in bed. I must cross my hands on my breast. I must smile. My children must know that I died in peace. From far away there seemed to be people around me. But their voices grew more distant.
“Then there seemed to come to me the comforting words of a priest. They added to my peace and content. I was ready for death. I smiled, I think. I know I wanted to. It was the last thing I remember.”
And then, days after the first injection of adrenalin, the “dead” woman regained consciousness. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.
“I shall never forget that hour,” she said. “I heard the clock strike four times—and I realized I was a living person in a living world.”
_A Fanciful Novel of the Red Desert Complete In This Issue_
DESERT MADNESS
_By_ HAROLD FREEMAN MINERS
_CHAPTER ONE_
THE GIRL AND THE HANDCUFFS
[Illustration]
For a long moment the man surveyed with tired eyes the queer cleft in the canon wall and the beaten trail that led into it.
Finally he addressed the nearest of his two burros in a listless, half humorous voice:
“Well, Archibald, it looks interesting—what say we try it?”
Archibald made no reply. Archibald was asleep. Immediately upon the halting of the little cavalcade the burro had sunk into a state of dejection more apathetic than usual and had promptly gone to sleep. In fact, it is doubtful if Archibald had not been asleep the greater part of the afternoon.
“You don’t care, eh, Archibald? Well, for that matter, neither do I. But let’s consider this matter, old timer. For the last hundred years, more or less, we’ve been strolling around this accursed desert, and we have made the acquaintance of a few cottontail rabbits, one or two coyotes, and a rattlesnake. The rabbits showed their distaste for our society by running away; the coyotes did nothing but deride us with mournful voices; the rattlesnake certainly showed no desire to be friendly. We’ve met no human being; we’ve discovered no fabulously rich gold mine; we’ve had our fill of scenery.
“There lies a well-beaten trail, disappearing into the face of solid rock. At its end lies mystery, adventure. Possibly romance. Also, possibly, cattle rustlers, who may greet us with anything but enthusiasm. In which case we’ll throw in our lot with them, and I’ll ride you across the desert to eternal glory. The idea intrigues me, Archibald. I think we shall investigate.”
At this moment an over-industrious flea must have launched a determined attack on one of the few vulnerable parts of Archibald’s anatomy, for he suddenly nodded his head vigorously.
“Ah, you agree with me? I knew you would. We will now follow the trail to adventure—or a sheep herder’s camp. Let’s go!”
Percy, the second burro, was with difficulty herded into the narrow trail. Archibald followed him with great reluctance, but finally the man succeeded in driving his tiny pack train into concerted action, and they slowly trudged up the narrow defile.
Stanley Ross had been exiled to the desert country because certain eminent New York doctors had come to the conclusion that he had contracted a disease which yields itself to treatment most readily in the dry desert uplands.
Ross had not been breathing the dry air of the desert for a month before he was as healthy as a prize fighter. The fact was that Stanley Ross had over-indulged in a certain pastime known as “reading the tape,” and Nature had gone on a strike. The New York doctors had provided the first step toward recovery; the desert had done the rest.
But there had been another hurt that had not healed so readily—or at least Ross had so convinced himself. Stanley Ross fondly believed that he was heart-broken. The cause was a blonde bit of New York femininity who had fancied Ross for a while, but in the end had fancied the millions of an oil man more.
So he had stayed on in the West. A healthy restlessness had driven him out to explore the uncharted wastes of the vast Red Desert, and the ever changing wonders of rock, and sand, and sky, of sagebrush and cactus, of sparkling night-heavens had beckoned him on. For months now he had been wandering up and down this immeasurable wonderland, obeying every vagary of mind, exploring every nook and cranny that caught his itinerant fancy, his only companions the two burros which he had so whimsically named.
Mirages had beckoned. Colors so bizarre that no artist had dared to give them to canvas had soothed his soul. Grotesqueries of rock and sand and canon had intrigued him.
Ross still believed that the old hurt was still present in his bosom. Actually he had been having a capital time for months, and the girl no longer mattered. However, he had allowed himself gradually to fall into a state of whimsical melancholy. What he needed was adventure. He was bored, but had he known what lay at the end of the thin twisting trail before him his boredom might not have been so acute.