Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

672 ued, ‘‘ we might as well settle up on this last job.” “Yes, I suppose so,”’ Kurtz agreed, rising from his chair. ‘“ The bag’s in my safe in the office. I'll go get it.” Jem, outside, had absorbed Goss’s re- marks with lively interest. So they had been holding a council to decide what to do with him! Deep regret filled his soul that he had not arrived sooner. The dis- cussion would undoubtedly have been fraught with the extremest interest to himself. Well, the situation still seemed full of promise, so he settled himseli to watch the proceedings. Kurtz had left the cabin and disappeared in the blackness toward camp. In a few moments he returned. In the darkness Jem could dimly discern some object in Kurtz’s hand. As the dredge master entered the light of the room, this object revealed itself as a leather satchel, which he deposited upon the table before him as he resumed his seat. As the light fell upon the bag Jem’s lips nearly let slip a cry of astonishment. On the side of the satchel was stamped in gold: ‘Nancy Hanks M. & M. Co.” The high- waymen of the day before, and the rest of their outlaw band, were seated in that room before his eyes—and one of them was the sheriff himself! “Now, there’s another thing,” Goss was saying in an aggrieved tone; he seemed in a disgruntled mood. ‘“ Here we are, fooling around with little dabs like this, when you’ve got a chance at gold bricks worth forty thousand dollars apiece.” “ Nothing doing on that.” Kurtz shook his head decisively. ‘In the long run this will pay us better. Why, just think of the fine cover this dredge gives us! There can’t any suspicion even fall in this direction, If that idea should come into anybody’s head, what’s the first thing that would strike them? The same thing that you're kicking about. They’d say that if I wanted to go in for that sort of thing, I’ve got a much better chance at something big, rather than fooling around with little dabs of six or seven thousand dollars. It’s a beautiful cover. “ That gold is going to be accounted for -ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, to the last grain of dust. Besides, we can keep this up indefinitely. With the dredge gold we’d have to skip at once. You can be sure the company ’d get busy with real detectives on anything like that.” Jem, at his post by the window, was racing his brain frantically. He dismissed as futile the thought of boldly holding them up. The position of those men sitting opposite the door made any unobserved approach impossible, and to cover all of the bandits so as to pre- vent resistance he must get fairly inside the room. A suggestion flickered through his mind. If conditions were suitable, it might be worked. It would require a cold nerve, but he would chance that if the mechanics could be arranged. Long experience in isolated cow camps, out of prompt reach of expert profession- als, had equipped Jem with a certain smat- tering of mechanical knowledge. He stared up through the darkness to where the two Wires must run that furnished the light to the interior of the room. Of course, it was too dark to see them. In all probability they were bare copper, the usual material in cheap camp construction. Now, if he knew where— He left the cabin and slipped back into the camp. He soon located, by both the smell and sound, the stable building. He stole quietly inside. He dared not switch on the electric light, for fear it be seen and arouse investigation. It required the burning of several match- es; but he found what he had hoped for— a good length of heavy log chain, used for fastening loads on the trucks; also a lot of rope, of similar utility. He tied the rope securely to one end of the chain, coiled his find over his arm, | slipped back to the cabin. CHAPTER IX, A SHERIFF AT WHOLESALE, HE pole line approached the shack from the side, so that Jem could not | be observed through the partially open door. He dropped the loose rope ZA (S@) Comichooks