Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

448 lows into his blanket. Martha Gregory wandered with a watering- can in one hand and a short-handled hoe in the other. With the one she dealt life to the flowers. With the other she dealt death to the weeds—a faultless justice. She was taller than Ugly Joe, and her ‘faces was even homelier, with a cast of the Scan- dinavian expressed by high cheek-bones, small eyes, and a perfectly straifht mouth so rigidly set that not the least blood-color showed in the lips. At sight of Patricia Lauriston the hostess dropped her watering-can, and embraced her guest with the liberated arm. There was more strength in that one arm than in any two that Patricia had ever felt, and when she looked up, somewhat breathless, she surprised a smile on the lips of the Amazon. It was like a warm surprise of sunshine on a cloudy day—there was some- thing generously enveloping about it. And Patricia smiled back. After all, there is only one smile for all. women when they are kindly moved and genuine. «Patricia and ‘“‘ Mother ” Martha cast an arm about each other and wandered into the house, com- pletely forgetful of Ugly Joe. His wife was called ‘ Mother ” through- out ten thousand square miles because she had no children and had to vent her tender- ness on flowers and broken-down horses and sick children. They still tell the story of how Mother Martha rode fifty miles in the space of a single night—fifty miles through a sand-storm that whipped her face raw— how her horse dropped—how she went on the last miles on foot—and reached the house of Jim Patrick. She saved three lives that time, for Mrs. Patrick gave birth to twins, and the lives of all three hovered at the brink of death for ten days, and were finally drawn back to life by the strong arm of Mother Martha. - That is only one of the stories they tell about Mother Martha. And if Patricia did not know these tales when she first saw her hostess, she must have guessed something of them. For when she passed through the door with Mother Martha, Patricia was ex- tremely glad that she had taken her trip to the mountain-desert, and, as I have said, her arm was about the waist of the Amazon. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. About those flowers " And that evening Patricia borrowed one of Mother Martha’s gingham dresses, which flapped about her more loosely than a Kanaka woman’s Holoku, and went into the kitchen to assist Martha. For the good wife would not keep a cook. No one, it seemed, could cook-to please Ugly Joe ex- cept herself. The master of the house had already despatched four riders in four various di- rections, and late that night, while Patricia sat at the piano—the pride of the house— playing everything from “ Suwanee River ” to the “ Maple Leaf Rag,” the four mes- sengers returned, and they brought with thera four others. Now the messengers themselves were hardy cow-punchers, not overly gentle m feature or voice or manner, but they were missionary spirits of sur- passing sweetness compared with the four accomplished ruffians they brought with them. The heart of a moving-picture direc- tor would have swelled almost to bursting if he could have seen them enter, for they were ideal figures for that episode in the third reel where the gang of villains pursues the innocent girl—the same episode, you know, where the gallant United States troopers in turn pursue the villains and dr- rive just in time to—well, that’ s the sort our four gunmen were. Chick Woods came first. His face was built like some great transatlantic liner, chiefly towering hull with diminutive deck works. Upon that massive jaw and swelling jowl, the diminutive nose, little pig eyes and forehead lost under a descending scrag of black hair, were set rather as a sugges- tion of how the face might be finished off than as a necessary part of the countenance. All that any one would ever remember of Chick would be that jaw and the fanplike teeth and the bull-neck made for hanging on. Behind him came his antithesis, Harry Yale. He was, as nearly as possible, -a figure in one dimension—length. Both his breadth and his thickness were not worth sideration. He looked like a man “who Kad gone without food for a month. There was the blaze of famine in his eyes, for in- stance, and his cheeks were so sunken that they pulled back the hips at the corners and 4A COMIC OOOKS. CON