Adventure, November 1915 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Gold Lust 7 the strong circle of light they seemed to hold something of alarm as their owner glanced across his shoulder into the bleak, snow-set mews, before he tramped, sturdily enough, across the threshold. “Easy as we go,” he said in a deep, rum- bling voice. ‘A bit of that light for the feet, miss. Thank’ee Addams shut and bolted the door and Peggy led the old man into the studio to a _big chair in front of the fire. On a little table beside it were pipes, a tobacco-jar, a box of cigars, a brass kettle above a spirit lamp and the materials for the brewing of hot toddy. The stranger surveyed the table with elo- quent eyes while the girl applied a match to the lamp beneath the kettle, as Addams entered the studio. “Why the back door, Archer?” queried Jim Winton. “We had a fancy we were followed. We took a taxicab from Macdougal Street where Fellowes has his room in a little court, and as we came out some one tagged us. Fellowes rather expected something of the kind and we planned to dodge. The chap was handicapped with a lame foot, but we couldn’t go over fast on account of the heavy snow tonight and he kept pretty close to us till we got to the Arch. Fellowes was strong for him not knowing where we were coming and we whipped around Wash- ington Place into Ninth Street, down Fifth Avenue and up the Mews before he’d turn- ed into the Avenue. It’s still snowing a little and the tracks are pretty well mixed up, so I figure we’ve lost him.”’ “Will you have some toddy, Mr. Fel- lowes?”’ asked Peggy. “It’s a cabin welcome you’re givin’ me,” answered the old fellow, basking before the grateful warmth of the fire. “I don’t go _ much on grog as a rule. I stopped usin’ it forty year ago; but I’m old now, and on a night like this it’s welcome. Seein’ as Mis- ter Addams has told me I’m to spin my own yarn, why, I’ll wet my whistle once in a while an’ be obliged to ye.” | Within a few minutes the group was es- tablished, the girl leaning forward interest- edly from her chair, elbows on knees and her chin between her hands, Addams and Winton on the lounge with their cigars, cen- tering their attention on Fellowes who sat, stroking his beard, looking meditatively into the fire. = _ laughed Jim. “WE’LL have to goa long ways back,” he commenced at last. “Back before any of your daddies was born, I reckon, likely enough; back to Californy an’ the gold rush—the days of forty-nine. I’m eighty-five, I am, an’ good for afew yearsyet. I’m hearty an’ sound, an’ my brain can box it’s own compass. Thet’s because I’ve left this stuff alone.” He pushed his tumbler away from him, took a cigar and lighted it, watching the smoke spirals in silence. “T’m tryin’ to get the yarn all shipshape without makin’ too many tacks,” he said. “There’s sixty-five years to cover, an’ there’s no sense in wasting time.”’ Addams brought a*book and a roll of pa- pers over to the little table. ‘“‘Here’s an atlas and some charts that. will help us to follow the story better,” he said. ‘And some papers that would natural- ly be termed supporting evidence.” “Mostly for my benefit, I suppose,” “Wait till I:put some more wood on the fire, Mr. Fellowes, before you start in.” He replenished the andirons and the flames leaped lustily, besieging the dusk of the great studio, unlighted save for the fire and one shaded lamp raised on a standard. “Selim will bring some more wood in presently,” said Peggy., “Now, Mr. Fel- lowes, we’re all comfy and curious.’ The old man looked at her eager “face with kindly eyes. “Tf my gal had lived,” he said, “she’d be twice your age by now. She had the same kind of hair you’ve got, miss, beggin’ your pardon—color of gold with flames reflected in it. But she’s dead, long since, dead from the lust 0’ gold, dead from the gold an’ the curse that lies upon it. “T wasn’t born so far from here,” he went on. “Up in Maine on a farm that run down to the sea at Penobscot Bay. I used to sail about in a catboat an’ the water al- ways suited me better than the land, when it come to ploughing of it, though I ‘didn’t dream I was goin’ to sail the seas I did be- fore I’d get through my adventurin’ an’ back to Maine again. | “I was twenty when the gold fever broke out. They was a ship goin’ ’roun’ the Horn to the diggin’s, an’ with a lot of my pals, wild ones they was, the fever caught me an’ we shipped to make our fortunes. It was a tough trip ’round, nine weeks tryin’ cS GComichoo (e(0)