The Master Key - Tapa blanda

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1915. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV FLIGHT HALF an hour later the posse was grouped about the dead fire and the sheriff was staring at a blood-stained blanket. "There has been trouble," he said abruptly. Then he turned on Gallon. "Why is this coffee hot?" he said, lifting up the pot. The brusque tones of the sheriff cut the silence that followed. "I don't see your man. I don't understand this. You are under arrest--for the murder of "He looked at Gallon, and the old man involuntarily said: "Wilkerson." A lizard, swiftly tracing its strange script on a bowlder, weaving in and out in that marvelous and mysterious way which our primal animals have, suddenly paused and lifted up its throbbing throat. It was the only living creature that knew that another being, near death, was creeping up the bank toward the edge of the mesa. It flickered away, leaving no trace on the solid rock. Wilkerson saw this creature and knew, even in his feverish delirium, that he had been seen. It comforted him, for he was a man that could not stand solitude, and the presence of the lizard and the recognition by that evasive, swift glance, gave him new strength. But behind him was Gallon. He had heard the posse go by. He had dimly seen a figure that was that of his partner--grim, stolid, taciturn and murderous. In his cowardly heart he resolved that he would follow the habit of all animals in the desert and secrete himself. "But ... I know . . ." he muttered to himself. All day the sheriff with Gallon, his arms pinioned behind him, searched the gullies and gulches for the man whose blood-stained blanket they had found. The old man, taciturn as ever, merely said, as if repeating by rote, "The outlaws got him!" When the full moon had risen, and the night life of the desert had begun--grotesque activity built of fleeting forms and bizarre...