Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

CHEDDAR CHEESE. ‘slid and rolled the human lading. The fat man gave them the most trouble, but by -dint of a lot of pulling and pushing and prying with the planks, they got the inert mass of him up into the tonneau, after a time. “There!” said Barrett, slamming the tonneau door upon the disorderly heap of -humanity tumbled in without regard to rid- -ing ease or even tolerable comfort. ‘“ Now _let’s see if you’ll poison anybody else’s cof- - fee!” Then to the bride of a day: “ Look me in the eye, Della, girl: Am I, or am I -not, red blooded enough to come up to - your father’s idea of the kind of man he wants for a son-in-law?” “Vou—you’ve got me all fuddled up and dazed, Jimmie, dear,” ‘“ Vou—you’re so different! What did it?” He laughed. “It’s the reaction from the _ _monkey-on-a-stick part you made me play — in the hotel. Did you think you were mar- rying something less than a man? Let’s go. It’s a long way back to Copah.” With the money sack salvaged, Barrett -kicked the slats off the pigeon coop so that the birds could escape, and then, climbing . 3 L less and hollow eyed, with a caking of the red dust in his matted hair, and beside hin to the driving seat of the touring car he took the wheel and the descent of the “mountain was begun. When they came to the curve in the road, where the roadster had been left, he stopped the car and got out. = “ Vou’ve had excitement and hard work enough for one night,” he told Della, “ and - T’m not going to let you drive that car to town. Ill slack the brake and let it run back into the ditch, and we'll send some- body out here after it to-morrow. Keep your gun handy and pull it down on those fellows in the tonneau if they wake up while I’m gone. This boat is an ambu- lance, now, but we won’t mind turning it into an undertaker’s wagon if they insist upon 3h Suiting the action to the word, he climbed into the roadster and let it run~ batkward until there was room to pass. Once more in his place behind the wheel of the touring car, he issued his final order. “Now you cuddle down and go to sleep, if you can. I can find the way back to ‘town with this truck load of stunned hogs, -first—but we'll make it serve. she stammered. - 943 _and there isn’t a thing you can do if you try to stay awake. This isn’t just my idea of a wedding tour—hasn’t been, from the Kiss me just once, dear, in honor of the occasion, and—” When she sat up, he saw by the light of the dash lamp that she was wiping her lips. “What was it—blood?” he asked, as he let the big car go racing down the grades. “No; grease paint,” she said; and with that she snuggled down beside him and closed her eyes. CHAPTER XIV. CHEDDAR CHEESE, N the graying dawn of a flawless June morning, early risers in the thriving lit- - tle mining city of Copah saw a seven- passenger automobile, red from radiator to rear tank with the dust of the desert, limp- -ing on an madequate number of cylinders up the hill street leading from the railway yards, = In the driving seat sat a young man, hat- was a young woman asleep, with her head -on the chauffeur’s shoulder, her face and natty suit of sport clothes also covered with — the red dust, and her cowboy hat rakishly cocked over one eye. In the roomy tonneau was a lading at which the early morning onlookers stared in — astonishment. Crouched on the floor of the car, with the rear seat for a back rest, were three men in various stages of di- shevelment; a fat man with a blond mus- tache; a dark faced man, bearded, blood stained and angry eyed; and a third, small- er than either of the others, whose face was a harsh mask of pain. It was at the main entrance of the Hotel Intermountain that the dusty automobile drew up. Very gently the haggard chauf-. at the singular spectacle afforded by the travel worn car and its strange occupants. - Through the revolving doors of the hotel came a detachment of bellboys intent upon —__ -feur awakened his seatmate, while a little _ knot of early pedestrians gathered to stare A) cS EComicboo (E(@) >—— ma