Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

fo ee "DESERT with lights and music. The sight of the notorious old den ablaze in an otherwise darkened town astonished — him. Could it be that he was dreaming? Was he actually being transported into that vanished era of Sun-up’s frontier history? It was most assuredly one thing or the — other. For there were the old saddle horses _ —a string of them tethered to the uprights of the piazza roofs. Indeed, Wyndham was himself a part of that picture. His own saddle seemed to be squeaking with a jollier rhythm, the rein chains jingled. The brim of his big som- brero flopped upward with the keen night wind, and a sudden blaze of yellow light flooded the young foreman’s face as he drew up before the old saloon. Reining in his horse he stood staring at this resurrection—this miracle. He saw the sign illuminated by a hanging oil lamp: “THE NEW GOLDEN CLOUD. “Tt’s not the new one!” he exclaimed, mentally. of twenty years ago. I remember this blaze of light when I was a calf—six years old!” Brilliant starlight, desert air, the ever- ‘present smell of sage, the wind from the mesas—it was all-as it had been before the lid was put on the boisterous, roaring bars of Sun-up, But there was one touch which until now had escaped the astounded Phil Wyndham. It was more convincing than the retch of leather or the neighing of pintos. It was a_ cow country song, heard in the-old days all the way from Texas to Montana. It came drifting to him—not exactly through the windows of the saloon, but in a monotonous, eerie, inexplicable way, al-_ ‘most as if it had been an echo long 3 impris-_ oned in the old mechanical piano of the dance hall trying insistently to free itself. It came drifting, it seemed, from somewhere far beyond the dance hall, beyond the bar, _ beyond the shack itself. ‘The small, uniform volume of its tune— unrelieved by crescendos excepting only when the wind, shifting, brought the full burden of it to Wyndham’s ears: “ Good- ry; = | Paint! Tm leavin’ Se a — ¢ VOICES. = a Z The. Golden Cloud ‘gambling ball was alive _ == here was no~ orchestra—no mechanical === It’s only a phonograph!” = “It’s the genuine Golden Cloud _the mechanical music of the record. Three ten, “Who in = old times: ‘were noted for = = Jey, harness maker, had started an argument = which Phil could not immediately interrupt. — Wyndham dismounted, walked his oe to one of the old ‘ethering posts, and — stepped to the door. He hea laughter, the — old-time yipping of high spirited vaqueros, — the sound of chips, the click of a billiard — ball. = He had a vision of he long bar, sopping = wet with beer suds. He entered. — == There was a barkeep sure enough and— the first impression of all—a Papago Indian Zee = with a red blanket. Still attracted, charmed, by that old song, he stepped into the hall. There were—as could easily have pee = as imagined—no horsemen out there on the dance floor leading their mounts through a quadrille. For a moment a pang of disillu- — —~ sionment struck through Wyndham’s heart. ~“ Fil be damned if [-ain’t plumb lecsede? Then he saw Hallie ‘Crockett. Fisch of triumph and happiness she was giving a hilarious exhibition of the old Texas Tom- — — my accompanied, by a carrot-topped young Z — man in a tight fitting store suit, jade green shirt and brilliantly shined yellow boots. A ‘circle of the town’s characters assisted the the performance by yipping and stamping their hobnailed boots. = The jingle of a vaquero ’$ spurs vitalized — = ~~ >» = = ~ ried six-guns, were sarah engaged at te = poker, the familiar scene Esty from their =. S prolific cigars. = Bee - Laughing and ‘ckitig wile Be Siecle of = her admirers, Hallie failed to notice the en-— = trance of the man from her home ranch. And for a few moments at least Wyndham | was unable to catch her eye. Sam Qui = Sam had asked for the President’s inaugural 2 address, 2 Fetard which Hallie promptly. = The man in had once been a park 3 turned from w iping the soda fountain glasses, the Papage in _ the red blanks =