Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

CHANNING COMES THROUGH. doctor who had examined Warren on the train, together with her conviction that Warren’s father would respond quickly to her telegram, had calmed her. The second visitor was a desert nomad, or drifter. Channing and Vallon were in the bunk house talking with the Red Mesa man whom they called ‘‘ Red,” when the drifter appeared in the open doorway. The man was tall, slender. His woolen shirt was threadbare, and in tatters at the wristbands, revealing forearms burned al- most black by the sun. The faded blue overalls he wore were much too large for him. They were drawn tight at the waist, the goods overlapping in great, wrinkled folds around his stomach and hips. They were tight at the knees where they were stuffed into the tops of boots that were run down at the heels and worn through at the toes. Had the drifter’s legs been straight, the bulging hips running sharply downward must have made him resemble a “ V ” from his knees to his hips; but his legs were so bowed that he suggested an animated ‘‘ U ” turned upside down. His narrow shoulders accentuated the broadness of the artificial hips. His neck, exposed, was as black as his arms. A black stubble beard of two or three weeks’ growth covered his face, and a pair of steady, hawklike eyes, just now alight with cynical inquiry, gleamed at Channing, Vallon, and the Red Mesa man from under the brim of the drifter’s shapeless hat. ‘“Grubbin’ time’s over, I reckon?” he said. “Vou’re a little late, stranger. But not a whole lot. We cooked enough grub this evenin’ for a dozen. If you'll amble over to the mess house you'll likely find grub enough to fill your belly half a dozen times. An’ still hot, mebbe. We didn’t rassle no dishes, us havin’ comp’ny. Help your- self.” It was Vallon who spoke. The drifter erinned at him. The drifter’s teeth were long, yellow. The two in the center of the upper jaw were missing. ‘Their absence gave to his face a singularly satyric ap- pearance. The drifter vanished. But before he did 653 so he looked long at the Red Mesa man, and at Channing. His eyes, though steady, had a vacuous gleam in them. It was as though with the one glance he observed every detail of clothing, of figure, of face and appearance that distinguished Chan- ning and the Red Mesa man. Channing sat staring at the dark rec- tangle of the doorway after the drifter van- ished. “That man don’t miss nothin’ he looks at,” he observed, shortly. “You’re shoutin’ he don’t.” agreed the Red Mesa man. “Since he left I’ve been wonderin’ if he seen that there wart on the back of my neck. MHe’s sure got funny eyes!” Channing and Vallon were silent. Chan- ning seemed preoccupied, Vallon’s brows were drawn together as though he were try- ing to solve a difficult mathematical prob- lem and was summoning a laggard sense to his aid. The Red Mesa man alone seemed to be thought-free. “‘ Looks like a scare-crow which has got loose when nobody was lookin’, he went on. “If them pants of his’n was any looser he’d have to crawl half a mile to get out of them, say he was layin’ down. An’ them legs! Say! Ive seen guys which had got bow-legged from ridin’ hosses, but I reckon that when that guy was a kid his maw must have grabbed him by the back of the neck an’ jammed him down an’ bent ’em. Any hoss which could throw him would have to starve hisself to a shadder an’ slip out between his legs.” The drifter stayed on after the Red Mesa man left to drive the specialist back to Red Mesa. But dawn disclosed the drifter cud- dled in his blankets beside the horse corral fence, within a stone’s throw of the bunk house, where he might have had his choice of a number of bunks. That he chose to sleep in the open seemed merely to indicate fixity of habit. But a later questioning by Vallon proved that his preference had swayed him. “YT shore don’t like that red-headed man!” declared the drifter. ‘‘ When thar’s any polecats around I want to git away from the smell of ’em. If I wasn’t a peace- oO COMmichooolkKs (C@