Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

~DESERT the twenty-foot uprights that once had served as the support for this roof, as well. as tethering posts for the saddle horses, _were fallen and buried in-sand drifts. The name of the saloon—Golden Cloud—was still visible, lettered against a background of scaly and blistered red. But the interior, thanks to the dry Ari- zona air, gave little evidence of decay. The climate that enables adobe missions—mere edifices of mud—to stand for a century or two and the templelike formations of the Grand Cafion to retain their exquisite -facades—had scarcely mellowed the rawness of the Golden Cloud’s unpainted boards. The bar was smeared slightly with cob-_ webs, flies had specked the signs on the wall which stipulated the price of jackass brandy as well as the management’s desire that dancing girls were not only to be s seen, but to be treated. Initials and names eared in the tables, the bar and the rudely planed uprights might have been the marks of dance girls -_or two-gun men still in the prime of their careers. Where knives had cut these names in the fresh hewn lumber the resin, now dry and powdery, still marked the ancient wounds. One particular sign, with streaks of rust - from the nails which held it up, caught Hallie Crockett’s eyes. It was a placard. evoking the whole picturesque career of her — father: Dan Crockett. His Alabama Band. No Vibrating after Sunrise. “There we are!” Fred Hayden ex- claimed, removing his derby and standing rapturously before this shrine. “ ‘The very name! The very dais upon which he played! And the scene! heroic men defiant of death, ready at any -taoment to be sent into eternity at the smile of a woman, at the challenge of a man, the passionate touching of a trigger. “ Glorious! Gambling away gold mines! Dancing to Dixie songs—to the clink of ~ spurs, to the rhythm of great oaths and smashing fists and blasting guns! Mortal life was nothing in their eyes—they were like gods, and the smoke-tinged red by that Picture it; a - _ smoke-befogged place, and all about rugged | VOICES. old locomotive headlight up there was like 809 a cloud on Olympus tinged by old Aurora = herself! -*“And, in the midst of this scene, pice ture your father, handsome, devil-may-care. hero that he was, with all the women crazy about him, and the men treating him with cigars or a split of champagne or a slug of gin, and the gamblers inviting him to sit in on their game—and your father breaking the bank and then treating the whole nous: for the rest of the night!” - Hallie’s eyes glowed, and she looked _ about as intently with as rapt a gaze as if she saw the ghosts of all thas frontier — characters assembled again, and heard the — jingle of spur chains, the shuffle of cowboy boots, the yipping of miners drunk with — their riches, the tinkle of glasses, the dry rattle of poker chips and dice. and her expression break into™ a “winsome smile. : “Those days are gone,” she said ade | Hayden. watched her face and saw the vision fade, = “You are going to bring them back. You’re the only one in the county who could do it. tious spirit of abandon. It’s immortal. se is here again in you! When I look into. your face I can see a flicker of lights—like — these night mirages you have in the Gold Poke Desert.” Your father typified, that glo-- | — y / Ih ; “There can’t be any more 6F that sin = shooting. There oughtn’t to be. law’s shut down on the liquor. left?” -“ The heart of it’s left!” ‘Hayden. cried dramatically. “The hates, the vengeance, the avarice, the love, the heroi si ies all in this town just as it was then. Do you — And the What’s suppose a man like Noah se backed passions? They’ re ee and simmering in every. Arizona town now ~as it was then!” —S— “ But how can I bring those days back?” - ‘Look here!” warped old bar. Hayden pointed to: the — “Pm going to turn that — place into a tamale stand. We'll have a They’ re eet : ~ = = Mex’ sell tamales, enchiladas, hot dogs. = - Nothing crazy about that. Every town in Arizona_ has already transformed its: old bars just that way Gomichbooks