Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

$56 Dean was too staggered to know how to take Eltzmann’s attitude. |§Eltzmann’s hand came down hard on Dean’s shoulder again. : “Three months’ pay if you want to break it!” gobbled the financier. “Why?” inquired Dean. ‘“°’Cause I led you into it, and you’re as green as young grass. You don’t know what’s ahead of you. Them independent diggers, as they’ve got the cheek to call themselves, are a tough crowd to handle. They'll ride all over you. And they won’t stop at nothing—murder, maybe. Don't say I didn’t warn you, when you get laid out.” “*T understand all that,” said Dean, won- dering at what appeared a spasm of con- science on Eltzmann’s part. “The political game out here ain’t a gentlemen’s game, like in your country and mine,” Eltzmann went on—and there was no hint of irony in his tone. ‘“ We're all in this business for what we can get out of it, and we ain’t using kid gloves, neither. And we shut our eyes as far as we can. Look ’ere! ’Ow about that Ashton busi- ness?” Dean looked at him steadily. ‘“ Well?” he demanded. “You knew Ashton was fighting mad with the company, because we sent him up for I. G. B.” (79 No.”’ In fact, Dean had not connected the company with Sir Philip’s persecution at the time he had told his story, and he had not stopped to think about it. He had im- agined Sir Philip’s feud was with one of the independent mines dotted sparsely over Batakaland. “Pore damn beggar!” soliloquized Eltz- mann. “ Got it in the neck, because he’s one of them idealists. But you ought to have known, seeing that you was on the road with him. When you told Mr. Wim- borne you’d think it over whether you’d work for us or not, I thought you were playing a double game. Now I see you’re just green. Don’t you know Sir Philip ’d give his soul to bust us, and that we’re out for his head?” ‘TI didn’t,” answered Dean, “ but, under ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the circumstances, you are certainly right about tearing up that contract. I shouldn’t care to go on.” “Old ’ard!” said Eltzmann. “ Who said you wouldn’t go on? When I offered you the chance of tearing up that contract, I wasn’t doing it for nothing. I guessed you wouldn’t want to hold the job when you knew I was on to that Ashton business. But you can’t go back on the company like that.” Dean felt himself becoming enraged. ‘¢ Just as you like, Mr. Eltzmann,” he an- swered. “I’m willing to serve as mine manager, or I’m willing to get out. But anything I do will be straight and above- board.” oo Eltzmann uttered one of his character- istic explosions of disgust. “Now I'll talk straight to you,” he said. “If you’re a friend of Sir Philip’s, you know he’s running his fat head against a brick wall. And you yourself might be laid by the heels to cool in jug for a year or so, for aiding and abetting him. Not that I’m a going to ’ave you pinched, whether you work for us or no. But what I told you in Johannesburg stands good up ‘ere, and all over the world, and _ that’s about sticking by one another. When you become an employee of the Batakaland Company, the company’s interests are yours.” “ Let’s come to the point,” said Dean. Eltzmann looked at him warily, remem- bering his experience in Johannesburg. He laid a finger crookedly on his coat lapel. ‘* Now don’t take this wrong, Mr. Jar- vis,” he said, ‘ but you know as well as I do what sort of man that Mr. Ashton is. And I hadn’t no share in putting him away. I don’t doubt it was crooked business, but I didn’t own a rod of land in Batakaland 7 then, nor a single mining share. You know, Mr. Jarvis, that he ain’t fit to fight the world, with his head in the clouds about that there concession of his. Suppose I was to promise you upon my soul that I’d seé he got pardoned, and a nice fat little sum in full compensation for everything — would you ’elp to give me the chance of a talk with him? Or with that girl of his? You can do that, Mr. Jarvis.” COMmMicClbooks.Gom