Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 2 (1926-02).djvu/109
hydraulic stream, and washed them down as mud and gravel. The mesa rose rimrocked and precipitous, like a biscuit to an ant. He hallooed and got no answer. One horse had broken its tether; he rode the other to a near-by ridge and gazed across. He could see the girl lying white and motionless. His hawk eyes told him that she was dead. So, being a coward in heart, he made off at speed. He quit the country altogether, changed his name, drifted down into border Arizona, and was shot at a gambling table in Tombstone some forty years ago. The girl, you see," said I, "has been lying here ever since, the half coin—that half coin of promise in her fingers, waiting for you and your understanding."
"But," he cried fiercely, "you say so. You weave a story. How am I to know? Where is your proof? Why should I believe? How does it happen———?"
"Because," I answered, "these bones and this half coin 'happen' to be here; and you 'happen' to be my passenger; and we 'happen' to land together upon this 'God-forsaken' spot. And my middle name," said I, "'happens' to be Lavelle, from the line of my grandfather who in his private memoirs confessed to a great wrong."
My old man plumped to his knees; he groped for the half coin. I left him pressing it to his lips and babbling a name, and I went back to the plane.
THE TWA CORBIES
(Old Ballad)
I heard twa corbies making a mane.
The tane unto the tother say:
Where sall we gang and dine today!
I wot there lies a new-slain knight.
Naebody kens that he lies there
But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.
Ye'll pick out his bonny blue een,
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.
But nane sall ken where he is gane.
O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.