Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

SOMEW HERE fluttering and their bangles jingling, were already in the doorway. He caught Slim by the wrist, and drew him hurriedly to one side to evade the im- pending encounter; and so, since the atten- tion of the gypsies was bent upon the line of men ranged along the bar, he escaped recognition for the time being. “We kin edge out now and make a git- away,” Slim prompted, as the trio began circulating about among the tables, urging people to have their fortunes told. He started off as he spoke, crouching down beside a couple of other men who were making their way out; but Mickey yanked him back. “Hold on. Natushka is heading over toward the sheriff’s table. Let’s watch and see what happens.” He moved up the room again, following the progress Of the gypsy girl, Slim reluc- tantly tagging at his heels; and when Natushka finally paused beside the singer the two partners were not more than a yard away. “ Shall TI tell the pretty lady’s fortune?” the gypsy murmured. But the sheriff looked up, scowling at the interruption. “ Beat it, you!” he ordered roughly. “ Ain’t no room in this camp for you thiev- ing fakers. On your way, I tell you.” “Oh, no, sheriff!” broke in the singer pleadingly. ‘ I’ve always wanted to have my fortune told by a gypsy, and never had a chance before. Let me try it, won’t your” ‘““Aw, Miss Calder, she can’t tell you nothin’,” Daggett decried impatiently. “ That’s just a stall them tramps pull, so’s to give ’em a chance to do their stealin’.” The accompanist chimed in with surly disapproval. “Drop it, Ilsa,” he snapped. ‘“ Can’t you see the sheriff wants to be rid of those people?” But the girl, as Mickey had expected, was not to be dissuaded. What woman can withstand the lure of a fortune teller? “ Please?” She smiled coaxingly up at Daggett. And when Ilsa Calder turned the full battery power of those blue eyes with their long, fringing lashes, on any man IN NEVADA. 495 —even a hard-boiled Nevada sheriff—he was lost. ‘All right,” he gulped unsteadily. “ Go ag’in’ it, if you want to waste the time. But you won’t hear nothin’ but a mess of bunk. I’m tellin’ you.” Ilsa, though, indifferent to his warning, was eagerly fumbling in her bag for silver to cross the gypsy’s palm. But when she looked up with the little assortment of coins in her fingers, she saw extended to her, not the hand of Natushka, but the fresh washed one of Mickey Rado. In the interval while she had been hunt- ing for the money he had stepped forward and tapped the waiting gypsy on the shoul- der. “Gorgio!” Natushka’s eyes widened joyfully at the sight of him. “ You here?” He leaned toward her and whispered rap- idly in Romany—a hurried injunction to stand aside and not interfere with what he was about to do; he had a purpose in view. Natushka hesitated, eying him uncer- tainly; but before she could decide whether to object or not, the singer, finishing her hunt for coins, started to lift her head, and Mickey, boldly pushing in front of the gypsy girl, thrust out his palm. Ilsa looked from it quickly up to the dark, smiling face bent above her, and recognizing the good-looking young stran- ger with whom she had exchanged glances earlier in the evening, drew back with a little fluttering exclamation of surprise. Her involuntary action attracted the at- tention of her two companions to the in- truder, and immediately both of them jumped to their feet. ‘Here! What the heck you think you are up to?” The sheriff’s brow darkened ominously. “You can’t butt in on no private party—not of mine, nohow.” The other man said nothing, but the look he shot at Mickey was so vicious that Slim, watching him, slipped quickly over in that direction so as to be prepared for contin- gencies. Mickey, however, merely grinned at the threatening scowls bestowed on him. “Why, sheriff,” he protested, “ you've got me wrong, me and a couple of vowels. Gomichbooks (CG (C@