Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/126

 wasted no time in preliminaries, but told my story at once. I left out nothing, hating myself as I saw ten more years add themselves to her drawn features as she listened in stony silence. Jerry stopped Thurston's first interruption by hurling him into a chair, and there our villain sat in sneering quiet till I finished. The moment I stopped talking, however, he sprang to his feet and denied everything, telling Abigail I had made up my entire story out of jealousy because he had thrown me over for her!

Honestly, this astonishing statement and the cool way Thurston made it dumfounded me for a moment, and Abigail seemed to read my silence and the dazed expression on my face as an admission of guilt. She looked daggers at me and Thurston smiled triumphantly, stepping quickly to her side. But it was the usually slow thinking Jerry Murphy who came to my rescue and ruined Mr. Thurston. Jerry stepped forward, yanked out a brutal looking automatic and grabbed Thurston's arm.

"You and me is goin' down to Headquarters, fellah!" growls Jerry. "It's against the rules in this man's town to impoisonate a dick. Maybe after they fingerprint you and look up your Bertillon down there they'll want you to stick around for a while! Are you comin' quiet, or do you want me to bend this gun over your head? Makes no difference to me!"