Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

A MONTH TO LIVE. | 7 calories and vitamines nicely calculated, would not be so carefully served to tempt his recreant appetite. No faithful servant would shave him. He who had always had everything now had nothing, and would soon have even less! All the adventurous, tingling, exciting events he had missed, after five and thirty years of commonplace, were now about to happen! The things he had never done before he was destined to do, and things he had always done as a matter of course he would never do again. How much all this worried the young man is attested by the cheerful air he hummed—something to do with going back to the farm—as he sank safely back in the cushions of his car. You wouldn’t think a young man pronounced as good as dead, so newly robbed of all, could be that merry; but he was. He even thought it a fine, humorous touch of fate that a wizened, white whis- kered old man, driving an old white mare hitched to a closed cart, should go by at this very time, bawling in a cracked voice: “OV clothes—I cash ol’ clothes!” There is an old proverb to the effect that the longest way round is often the shortest. True enough, I grant you, and yet people in this hurlyburly age are al- ways and forever taking short cuts. Who pays any attention to proverbs, anyway? Rollin would have gone back to his an- cestral home and never run a wheel off the macadam road. But this would mean a three hundred mile trip. Whereas a shorter cut, with only a few miles of good dirt road, would save him more than fifty miles. The macadam road was like any other macadam road—crowded with cars and de- void of human interest. Every strategic point had its signboards. With devilish in- genuity the road always kept out of view of the best scenery. But macadam has little to do with adventure. You’ve got to seek that in the paths and country roads. It was not until Rollin came to the dirt road that the Fates took an active interest in his changing career. The dirt road climbed easily up a long grade. It was not a bad road, as dirt roads go, but it would not permit any speed. Tt wound along the base of wooded hills, close to noisy streams, in narrow valleys. It was guarded by old fences and tangled brush. Strange birds flitted back and forth in front of the car or called at him from the thicket. Once a rabbit hopped along in front of him until threatened by the wheels. There were steep pitches and thank-ye-marms, little level stretches, but always reaching for the heights above. At last the car topped the rise to where a great expanse of country rolled before the eyes. Here the low wooded hills were clothed in varying greens and a few tilled fields of the narrow valleys took on the golden brown of ripening grain. And the heavy gossamer mists of late summer were already veiling the higher hilltops beyond. Houses were few and scarce—a few weatherbeaten little homes and gray barns on the lower slopes; a few tiny white single story frame houses in the narrow valleys. The scenery from this height was won- derful, but Rollin did not see it. His eyes were fixed on the narrow road, and just where the view could be seen at its best a front tire blew out with a resounding rever- beration. Rollin’s lps moved, but he was actually too weak and tired to curse. He had been driving hours and hours. He climbed slow- ly out and walked around to the flat tire. It was not until then that he noticed the big chested drover standing beside the road, a long whip in his hairy right fist. “ Oh, hello,” greeted Rollin. old tire—” He was not a very amiable drover. He drew down his bushy black brows over little black eyes, and his heavy black mustache dropped at the curled ends into a belliger- ent mask. He was big, but not fat, a great bulk of a man with grimy hands like red cheeses. “« Stand!’ commanded the stranger. “Barely able,’ answered Rollin feebly, but pleasantly, clutching at the car. “ Deliver!” thundered the drover. “Extra charge of ten cents, sir.” “No funny stuff now—business,” growled the drover. “Total strangers—business and I.” “ Beastly GOmiGvOoks=co 5}