Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

124 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE taking a siesta. To the distracted girl it seemed an age that she stood there looking, calling for help and hearing, seeing, no one. She looked about for a stone with which to break the lock but there was nothing near. Nothing but dust. Dust and blinding sunlight. For a moment she thought she would go mad. If only she could pull out the hasp of the lock. With the thought came an inspiration. Another instant and the end of the lariat hanging on the pommel of her saddle was slipped through the lock. Springing to her horse she spurred the animal forward. There was a jar, a jangle of metal, and the door was open, for the entire lock was torn off. Within the cool depths of the ice house Edith's failing strength revived. She longed to bandage some of the cooling fragments about her own head, but there was not time. The minutes seemed hours. The large cake of ice she selected required all her failing strength to lift, for she knew only too well what havoc the hot winds would cause, and that the most she could expect to have when she reached the ranch would be but a small part of the large piece so carefully wrapped in burlap and fastened to the saddle for the homeward ride. At the ranch where Mrs. Burton lay, still feebly moaning, but giving no other indication of consciousness, the doctor paced the floor with his. watch in his hand. In two hours at most the crisis would be reached and unless the ice arrived the patient would never regain consciousness. "Oh, if Edith would only come!" exclaimed Helen, watching from the doorway. Out on the plains Edith is riding like mad. The sun has increased in intensty. The clouds of dust rise up and strangle her ; her throat is parched, her eyes are aching, yet she must go on. The first relay is finished and the horse left in the bushes is found safe and well rested. But as Edith tied the ice pack to the saddle again she cried out in despair at the realization that fully one-fourth of the ice was already gone. "It must not melt — it shall not — Go !" she cried to the fresh horse which responded to her command by making splendid time over the dusty road. The hot winds are like blasts from fiery ovens. Edith's face is dripping with perspiration, and the horse is soon flecked with foam, but the mad race with death must be won. There is some encouragement in having the horse start off at such speed and keep his pace so steadily, but now Edith will not trust herself to watch the rapidly lessening ice pack. She fears for the safety of the third horse, Robin, but is relieved to hear his gentle whinny of welcome as they approach. The next instant she is filled with alarm. Suppose that whinny had been heard by other ears. Suppose someone should overtake her now and rob her of the precious burden just as she had almost finished the journey. The terrific strain is beginning to tell upon the girl as well as upon the dripping horse. Almost delirious with heat and fatigue, Edith changed the sack to Robin's back and noticed, with a steady glitter in her eyes, that it was again diminished in size. "Go, Robin, go !" she whispered, and the horse needed no spurs when he found that he was turned toward home. Half of the last lap was soon done and for the first time poor Edith drew a breath of relief at the thought they might yet be in time. "Whoa — hands up !" The rough shout came from a clump of bushes beside the road and caused Robin to rear frightfully. Edith pulled him up suddenly, and she found herself covered by a six-shooter in the hands of a villainous individual whom she at once recognized, from the descriptions she had heard, as Black Ike. Even in the terror of the moment, however, she remembered that he had never been known to shoot at a woman. "I don't believe he will shoot," she thought, "he only wants to frighten me." She was about to spur Robin past the scoundrel, and run the risk of bullets, when the precious sack, loosened by the sudden prancing of the