Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

482 to keep their discovery a secret between them. But when the assay report more than confirmed their belief in the richness of the find, and they saw themselves blooming out as millionaires, they could not help indulg- ing in a little bragging. Within half an hour the wires were flashing the news far and wide, and the rush was on. In the surge of eager gold seekers came Mickey Rado, whose smoke, for all his six months’ exile in the West, still lingered over the traffic courts and dance floors of Manhattan Island, and his partner of a day, a typical cow hand who answered to the name of “ Slim.” They had pushed right through without stop except at Goldfield to purchase an outfit. And so, dusty and travel stained, but with a tug of excitement in their throats, they rode into Quoonah on the third day of the camp’s existence, just as the setting sun was dropping behind the peak of the bald, waterless mountain be- yond. What they saw was not especially pre- possessing. It was the inception of Lead- ville over again, of Cripple Creek over again, of Rhyolite over again, of any new mining strike. Noise, confusion, dust, disorder, sweat, bustle, stir. Everything under way; noth- ing completed. Crowds tramping helter- skelter in every direction. New arrivals constantly pouring in. Trucks piled with lumber and supplies grinding through the press, to dump their loads down anywhere and speed away for more. A town of tents, that was being trans- formed into a town of shacks as fast as boards and tar paper could be nailed to- gether. A thousand hammers were ring- ing, and would continue to ring throughout the night, effectually banishing sleep. But nobody was concerned over sleep at Quoonah; that might mean missing some- thing. A dozen new rumors were started every minute—rumors of fresh strikes; of the sale of claims at fabulous prices; of properties being jumped; of plans to bore for water, the camp’s great crying need; of this, of that, and the other thing; most of them baseless in fact, but each holding ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. its circle of greedy listeners until the next sensation came along. It was life in the raw—rough, primitive, shorn of all the comforts and most of the decencies of civilization. People were crowded together in haphazard fashion, without adequate sanitary arrangements, without water except what could be hauled from twenty miles away, without proper shelter from the nipping mountain air, gouged for everything they needed at ex- tortionate prices, put to all sorts of make- shifts and inconveniences merely to sub- sist. Yet no one ‘seemed to care. Gold was all that mattered; and each man seemed to feel that to-morrow or next day perhaps fortune would be in his grasp. The crowds and the hubbub even gave a sort of holiday aspect to the place. “Kind of reminds me of the big day at a county fair,” Mickey commented, as he and Slim rode through the cluttered main street. They found, after some searching, an unoccupied spot to unload and pitch their tent, and then hustled around to stake out a couple of claims before it got dark. Slim, in whom the gold fever had become virulent, was itching to proceed at once with the development work on their new holdings. But Mickey vetoed any such suggestion. ‘* Not me,” he demurred. “If thar’s gold in them hills, boy, it isn’t going to run away. And, believe me, you can’t spend ali day in the saddle, and then swing a pick and shovel at night—not to accom- plish anything. “What I’m going to do,” he announced, ‘is stroll around a bit to get the kinks out of my legs and give the slab the once-over, and then hole in for a real sleep. And you'd better join me. We’ll make all the more headway by tackling the job fresh in the morning.” The discussion came up while they were eating supper; and Slim having finally yielded the point, they hurriedly disposed of the dishes by scrubbing them off with sand, and set out for a saunter along Main Street. There wasn’t much to see; a row of COPMICLOOKS (E@)