Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

392 a day or two before he had been promoted, and was now a “ trammer ”’—which, bring- ing with it release from constant shovel work, he was disposed to consider mere child’s play. Perhaps this was a part of the lesson that Hugh McGregor had at- tempted to convey. William’s attitude, even though partially assumed, proved a genuine surprise to Mar- garet. “T did not think any one could feel that way. And I do think it is perfectly splendid—even Mr. Hanley never did all that!” The tribute was genuine; there was charming flattery in the way she looked at him. William would have been more vir- tuous than human had he explained that the choice was not made of his own free will. “Oh, it’s all in a lifetime,” he said airily. They passed at the foot of the steeply ascending flight of stairs that, climbing up- ward, stage after stage, led from the street below to the Copper Butte Hotel, and thence to the “upper street” where the * high-collar ’’ workmen had built their cot- tages. The sinking sun, a great red ball resting on the top of Seco Mountain, shone ruddily through the vapors rising from the great smelter stacks, painting the sprawling black buildings of the smelter with pastel pig- ments of subdued~ colored light. Over them the leaping flame of the blast furnaces flowered green and crimson. As they looked, one after the other, three rivers af fire spilled upon the dumps. The brown and yellow valley, a distant scenic painting, lay spread below them, remote and desolate, colored softly in the shadow of the peak, reaching away to meet the failing sunlight on the far slopes of a range of purple hills. “Some people,” said Margaret thought- fully, “ think all that is ugly—but I don’t. I have friends who say ‘ How can you live in Hobart?’ I shouldn’t like to work any- where else?” “No?” querled William, astonished in his turn. “ Just what is the—er—fascina- tion, may I ask?” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “Why, haven’t you ever noticed it? Just the color, and all that fire, and everything. It is never the same a minute at a time. And then, besides ”’—she became a little more serious, dreams passing behind her dark-blue eyes—“ there is the idea-of what we are doing here, even if I don’t do a very big part of it. “First, there is just the ore down in the mine, all in the dark that nobody can use. And then, when the men get through with it, all that copper is used in so many ways. I like to think, if we were not work- ing here, there would be people all over the world who wouldn’t have any electric light, or street cars, or—or pennies—you know what I mean? It just seems to me that we are not out of the world at all— but as close to the world as we can get.” She fell silent, looking at the picture with ardent eyes. This was certainly a new viewpoint for William. But in the magic of the girl’s imagination, with wider experience and richer material, he grasped a vision of more solidity: Broadway flaring in a blaze of light; stately ships in which men go down to sea; the flight of thought sped on wings of lightning around the world—made pos- sible by the hidden wealth of Copper Butte. It brought to him, somehow, a curious sen- sation of humility. He looked with wonder at this fair young girl whose thought had leaped so much further than his own. “T never did think of it that way at all,” William confessed, stirred with the sense of new discovery. ‘I can see how that would make a difference.” “Of course it’s only an idea of mine.” Margaret smiled in whimsical apology for her fancy’s flight. ‘Girls have such things.” This, too, was news to William, whose experience had been almost wholly with a type whose ideas were of an entirely dif- ferent trend. But Margaret followed her fancy no further now. ‘“ You are on the night shift, are you not?”—looking at him with frank friendliness. He nodded an affirmative. “I thought so,” she commented, “ be- cause this is almost the first time I’ve seen you since you left the office.” COMmMiCbMooks.Gom