[syndicate] B: The Clark Ashton Smith of Zane Grey

[jeff harrison]

CHAPTER I. LASSITER 


A sharp clip-crop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over 

I, a poor scrivener 

sage 

it has no likeness to the beasts of earth, to the creatures of air and water 

She wanted the sleepy quiet pastoral days to last always 

It was impossible to surmise their actual appearance, for, even as the taverner had hinted, their very hands were concealed by fingerless gloves; and the purple gowns came down in loose folds that trailed about their feet like unwinding cerecloths. There was a horror about them, of which the macabre masks were only a lesser element; a horror that lay partly in their unnatural, crouching attitudes, and the beastlike agility with which they moved, unhampered by their cumbrous habiliments 

Tull put out a groping hand. The life of his eyes dulled to the gloom with which men of his fear saw the approach of death. But death, while it hovered over him, did not descend, for the rider waited for the twitching fingers, the downward flash of hand that did not come. Tull, gathering himself together, turned to the horses, attended by his pale comrades. 


* 


CHAPTER II. COTTONWOODS 


Venters appeared too deeply moved to speak the gratitude his face expressed. 

Among them, they carried a curious bier, made from interwoven strips of leather, and with monstrous bones that served for frame and handles. The leather was greasy and blackened as if from long years of mortuary use. 

"Some men once roped an' tied him, an' th 

I have never acquired the diary-keeping habit — mainly, because of my uneventful, mode of existence, in which there has seldom been anything to chronicle 

held white-iron close to his eyes." 

Loath were the fishers to touch the dead men 

somewhere a robin sang its evening song, and on the still air floated the freshness and murmur of flowing water 

Naught but the raiment of the marble corpses had been consumed; and they shone white as moon-washed marble above the charrings of wood; and nowhere upon them was there any blackness from the fire 

specters, and they, too, melted into the night. 


* 


CHAPTER III. AMBER SPRING 


No unusual circumstances was it for Oldring and some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing. 

My name is Pharpetron, among those who have known me in Poseidonis; but even I, the last and most forward pupil of the wise Avyctes, know not the name of that which I am fated to become ere to-morrow. 

unusual circumstances was it for Oldring a 

No unusual circumstances was it for Oldring and some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing. 

d some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing. 

using ignorantly a dire formula; 

"It's Judkins, your Gentile rider!" he cried. "Jane, when Judkins rides like that it means hell!" 


* 


CHAPTER IV. DECEPTION PASS 


The rider thundered up and almost threw his foam-flecked horse in the sudden stop. He was a giant form, and with fearless eyes. 

hapter iv. dece 

Turning to regain his path, he crushed others of the toads to an abhorrent pulp under his feet. The marshy soil was alive with them. They flopped against him from the mist, striking his legs, his bosom, his very face with their clammy bodies. 

tio 

My poems have appeared in 30 or more magazines, in 10 or 12 anthologies; and some have even been used in school readers. I have done a number of translations from French poetry, amid have dabbled, rather ineptly no doubt, in the writing of French verse. 

p 

Venters sent him for meat, bread, and dried fruits, to be packed in saddlebags. His own horse he turned loose into the nearest corral. Then he went for Wrangle. The giant sorrel had earned his name for a trait the opposite of amiability. 

Expansion and contraction of eye-pupil under light a test of obsession, since an obsessing or intruding spirit cannot secure control of the eye. (Rosicrucianism.) 

The Masked Rider huddled over his pommel slowly swaying to one side, and then, with a faint, strange cry, slipped out of the saddle. 

   

 	
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