Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1921)

Photoplay Magazine drooping oaks, rigid pines and an endless vista of crepe-like gray moss. Beyond the fringe of trees lay the unhealthy swamp region of southeastern South Carolina; a waste area criss-crossed by roads which are not roads and inhabited by shiftless, dilapidated negroes and poor white trash ravaged by malaria. The deputy had removed coat and collar and the murderer silently extended his hands to show where the handcuffs had chafed the skin raw. It was then that the deputy removed the handcuffs, knowing that Bill Walters could not escape. 43 murders. The one committed by him had been unspeakable. Bill Walters moved swiftly once within the shelter of the swamp. He struck straight eastward, exulting over the miracle which had protected him from the vicious bullets of the deputy. Nor did he allow himself to become panicky. His life was already forfeit: therefore he planned coolly and collectedly to cheat the State of its due. The swamp was not an unknown region to him. He had hunted through this vast wasteland many times, and he knew just what course afforded him the best chance of making good his escape. The fall from the train had bruised him considerably, but bruises meant little then — and he held to his course, avoiding houses until night settled dankly over the swamp. It was then that he came upon a corduroy roadbed and allowed himself to follow it, ears alert, himself untroubled by fear. Most of that night he travelled, snatching a few hours sleep in the shelter of a large oak tree which grew upon a knoll rising tomblike from the surrounding wetness. And then in the morning he continued his careful, tortuous jffurney eastward. And hunger came upon him and gnawed — and that night he went into a little country store, after first making himself presentable. There he asked the wizened old storekeeper to show him a shotgun and some shells. And when two shells were in the barrels he demanded food from the storekeeper — and when he left the store he had food — plenty of it — and another human life had been added to the accounting which he owed to God and the State. lighthouse keeper and started upon his mission. The girl accompanied Mid kiss him upon the mouth. Then . . . "Goodbye, Bill! The thing was impossible. But it happened! There was a leap through the open window into the fastgathering dusk, an oath from the deputy, a spitting of revolver shots toward the figure which pitched to the roadbed of cinders, fell, somersaulted, then darted swiftly through the muck and mire to disappear in the swamp. The passengers were aroused from their lethargy. The conductor pulled the bell cord and stopped the train. The deputy, cursing loudly, leaped boldly in futile pursuit. Sickly, hot children screamed with terror at sound of the shooting and clung stickily to their parents. Men speculated profanely upon the outcome of the chase and prophesied that the law would either refasten its clutches upon the fugitive or else that the murderer would succumb to the diseases hanging ever in the miasma which hovers over Hell Hole swamp. And then the train moved on toward Columbia whither Bill Walters had been bound. There, according to the sentence of the court, he was shortly to have been electrocuted for a murder unusually revolting. There was no question of his guilt; white man though he was, the jury had brought in a verdict of guilty in less than twenty minutes — and white men are not sentenced to death in South Carolina for ordinary h. SO he made his way toward the coast, veering southward as he travelled, circling the city of Charleston. With the money secured from the store of his last victim he purchased food along the route. Nor did specters of his crimes come to haunt him during that horrible, treacherous journey. He was a man utterly devoid of human emotion. There was no fear within him. He was vicious as a water moccasin, and as fearless and venomous. With it all he had the face of an innocent youth: guileless: rather handsome. Only in his eyes there was a hardness, a mercilessness, which was less than human. He had no conscience. On the shore of the Ashley River, a few miles above Charleston, he stole a fishing boat and in it sailed southward into the maze of islands dotting the coast. And it was in that boat that he came eventually to Horizon Island and went straight to Peter Merriam, keeper of the light. "My name is Rogers," he lied, meeting Merriam's eyes squarely and forcing the old man to like him. "The doctor told me I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and that I need a few weeks of fishing and complete rest. May I stay here with you?" Peter Merriam choked down as unworthy a faint premonition of disaster. The man who called himself Rogers was a likeable lad; a bit unkempt after a day and a half in his stolen fishing boat, but nevertheless a clean-looking boy. Peter Merriam called himself an old fool as he gave the boy his hand and invited him to make his home at the lighthouse. Bill Walters demurred. He had no intention, he protested, of intruding to that extent. He merely wanted permission to loaf about the beach, to seek the shelter of the home adjoining the lighthouse in inclement weather, and to eat his meals there. But the lonely soul of Peter Merriam yearned for company — although he himself did not know it — and, too, he was naturally hospitable, so he forced the young man to accept the shelter of his home. And Peter Merriam introduced the murderer to his daughter. Peter Merriam did not, at first, recognize the menace of such an association of youth. Somehow, the old man had never sensed the fact that Doris was grown to womanhood and that nature had brought to her a woman's emotions. And so,