Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

this voice from civilization. A great man, <a historical personage, was speaking quite confidentially, it seemed, to a group of - cowdogs and muckers in a desert town! One of these muckers, however, a hermit from the Granite Wash Mountains, did not join in with the reverential spirit of the : others. When the speech rasped to a close, - - and Hallie slid another record onto the disk, ~~ the old mucker spat and said: ‘“T ain’t believin’ everythin’ that’ s told me in this here bar.”’ = ~The crowd turned its gaze upon the ae - = of this extremely irreverent remark. The red-haired young man in the highly colored clothes burst into a loud, prolonged -——— laugh. Phif Wyndham saw his open mouth and the gold fillings of his teeth. He hated actly designate. — 8 ceptical : mucker went on, “ that that ain’t ~ the voice of no President.” —. ‘ What ll you wager?” was Hallie’s very _ natural but good natured retort. = ing ‘circle of cuests. “Is ere any man Ss Shier who knows the President’s voice?” he "demanded bitingly. = - This quieted them for a moment, and it = appeared that the old mucker was to win = his extraordinary argument until the well = = : dressed red-haired one struck upon a happy answer: “It’s written here on the record, == ~ Read it for. yourself!” Inasmuch as new the mucker couldn’t read, he con- But ~—he- sidered that the argument was won. ~ -the old man was still resourceful. ee = — “J grant it’s printed on this here pan. 7 / Maybe So. But you can’t prove it by no- = Se Los “here: 52 ” Hallie a = -— “this pan as you call it has the actual voice of the President recorded here—just oS as you write a letter on paper. _- President’s voice speaking to us—it’s hard i eN = 3 ~ to > I mags It S SO wonderful.” en to atl her’ bial = : == : a stopped t to listen in rapt aftentiex 5 — suddenly for no reason we: sould ex: And I'm wanerin” | hae ae now,” > the ; Se do. make a wager | See oan n_you It’s the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. = If that’s the President in Washington givin’ that thar speech,” he said craftily, “Td like for you to put on another pan with another speech.” — “* What ’Il you have, Jo?” Hallie asked. * Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech! Put that on and I'll believe you!” The scornful shouting and yipping of the crowd was cut short by a sudden change of expression on the girl’s face. Instead of joining in with the general laughter, she was staring with an almost frightened look at an insignificant cowman who had entered unobtrusively upon the scene. They observed the serious, firm mouth, and the brown eyes peering under the rim of the big sombrero. The obvious fact that, somewhere in Hallie’s past, this man played an important part, displeased them. The red-haired youth sat up straight and twisted his cigar about in his ‘mouth, pulfing 2 warmly. Sam Quiggley, the harness maker, recog- nized Phil Wyndham as the foreman of one of the outfits of the cattle range to the south. But it was Wyndham hime we _ broke the sudden, tense silence. - moment « every one in the room had the pe- For the culiar feeling—an_ ‘Intuition common to all euests past and present at the Golden Cloud bar—that this stranger was about to. make : trouble. Having created this general impression Wyndham, his features almost threatening with the seriousness of his mission, , said calmly: — “Yd like to talk to you, Hatlie= alone 2 Hallie could not tell by the note in Phil’s voice whether his tidings were bad or not. Optimistic as she always was she refused to succumb to the first natural fear—that something had happened to her mother. She paled slightly—a circumstance which the men about her misconstrued. It was Mr. Frederick Hayden, the gentle- man in the colorful suit, who took matters into his own hands, realizing of course that the crowd was backing him. “Tam the owner of this establishment,” he said, “ that is, f am a partner with Miss se Hallie Crockett—Miss Crockett, whom we- have nicknamed ‘ Sun-up’s Ss Sweatheare We all gee to ee man Pee in- here = = ks-com” <= ‘ = 2 — = > — - = Se “- eS Ses >