Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

- MYSTERY ‘ But the herd is all right now,” he add- ed. ‘“‘ You’ve had breakfast, eh? You’re all right?” “Everything is all right,’ she assured him, watching him intently. ‘“‘ Were you thinking I was in trouble?” “Trouble!” he smiled. ‘‘Oh, no. No trouble is comin’ to you, ma’am. You won’t have any trouble here. You reckon you're goin’ to like it?” “Tt is wonderful!” she returned. ‘“ The air, the surroundings—everything. And Mr. Bassett is a wonderful man! He has been very kind to Eve and me.” The flush in her cheeks deepened. ‘‘ We like it so well here that I have agreed to stay and keep house for Mr. Bassett.” Again he decided that it wouldn’t do to deprecate Bassett. He contrived to smile. “Accordin’ to that I’ll be drivin’ the buckboard back to Red Mesa,” he said. “You won’t be needin’ it.” ‘“‘T shall stay here for a while, anyway,” she said. Her voice lowered, softened a lit- tle, he thought. “I want to thank you for —for what you did for us,” she added. “JI think you must have known right away—when you first saw us, that is—how things stood with us. Channing, you didn’t know that I hadn’t a cent in my purse!” Channing’s lips straightened. “You didn’t tell Bassett that?” he ques- tioned. ‘T would never tell Mr. Bassett!” she declared, firmly. * But you’re tellin’ me.” “Channing,” she said; “ you are my friend. Mr. Bassett is my employer. Isn’t there a difference?” “Some,” agreed Channing. He smiled. At a stroke all his rage against Bassett had been banished. He didn’t know exactly what he had feared when Bassett had told him that Jane and Eve were quartered in the ranch house: the emotion that had seized him then had defied his reasoning powers. But whatever the emotion it trou- bled him no longer. “Well,” he said, “I’m mighty glad you're goin’ to stay. Mebbe there’s a lot of things in this country that will interest you. It’s right pretty in spots.’ He had LAND. Zit forgotten that yesterday, before the arrival of the Limited, he had mentally damned the country from horizon to horizon. Now, it seemed to him that it held beauties which he had not half appreciated. Where yesterday he had been able to see nothing but dust, he now observed long and inviting green stretches, patches of .forest, an emerald carpet in a little basin, a tan- gle of wild, beautiful brush in a distant flat. He saw majesty in the lofty blue peaks of some remote mountains, too—the Santa Catalinas westward; eastward the Caliuros, and behind them the rugged crags of the Pinalenos. He pointed them all out to her, too; and she came out upon the porch the better to look at them. “This country ain’t half appreciated, ma’am,” he told her, gravely; “ there’s folks that pass through here on the trains, an’ when they get where they’re goin’ they claim they ain’t seen anything. That’s be- cause they don’t look long enough, I reck- on. You can’t see a country by runnin’ through it on a train goin’ sixty miles an hour. “You can look all day at them moun- tains an’ every minute you’ll see somethin’ different in them. Some day, after you’re sort of established, an’ Eve is a little stron- ger, we'll ride over that way an’ look at them closer.’’ “I'd love to!” she said. ‘“ Yes; we'll go. But first I must learn to ride.” ‘“ Shucks,’”’ he deprecated; ‘“ you’d learn to ride in no time. I'll gentle a horse for you. That will take mebbe a week.” He looked at her and his expression grew grave and speculative. ‘ But you’d have to ride ‘straddle’ [ reckon. There ain’t a side-sad- dle on the place.” “Oh!” she exclaimed. “That ain’t anything,’ he declared so- berly. ‘‘ The women out here all ride that way. Nobody does any criticizin’, An’ when you once learn to ride that way you wouldn’t want to ride any other way. “We'll teach Eve to ride, too. We'll set out some mornin’ early, takin’ grub an’ water, an’ we’ll—” “Channing,” interrupted Bassett; “the boys are waitin’ for you to comb them Gomichbooks Con