Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

=r JOSH STEBBINS they’ve been feedin’ on them mountainsides so long thet their legs is shorter on one side than on the other, an’ they can’t stand up on level ground. We tried to ketch one, an’ chased it row. . -5.- .. ° mountain witha little flat on top. It jest nm round an’ round at the same level, an’ we couldn’t git near it, till one of us stood still an’ waited fer.it ter come round while the other chased it with the dogs. When it seen a man standin’ in its trail it edged up the mountain a little higher every time it come round, an’ o’ course we kept foller- in’ it up till it made a sorta corkscrew trail ter the flat ground on top o’ the mountain. When it got there it fell down an’ died 0’ fright when it couldn’t balance itself on its two longest legs, fer the short ones didn’t tech the ground by three inches. “T drawed a pickcher of it fer one o’ them sharps with horn specs at the Noo York Mooseyum of Nacheral Hist’ry, an’ after I told him what it was like, he wrote out its Scientific name fer me, he called it the Gyascutas Imtposilissimus Stebbinii. Then he shook hands with me an’ told me thet I could count on him, ef I needed any help in bein’ elected Grand Worthy High Priest: of the Ancient Order of An- nanias. I don’t know any Latin an’ didn’t sabe jest what he was drivin’ at, but I told “him I guessed I could git elected without any o’ his help, efNI wanted the job, an’ he sed he thought so himself. “ But ez I was tellin’ ye, when I hap- pened ter remember thet mooseyum Smart Aleck, an’ what he sed to me—we was skin- nin’ the Side-Hill Runner, an’ hed a fire started ter brile some steaks, when Barney looked up an’ sez: “¢ Fer the luvva Mike, Josh, what’s thet comin’ ??’ ; ‘“ Ar’ about a mile away, flyin’ low, was a big balloon with two people stickin’ their heads over the edge o’ the basket. We yelled an’ fired our rifles signalin’ to ’em the best we could, an’ they saw us an’ pulled the cord on the gas valve, bringin’ down their machine ag’in’ a big oak tree in a little flat at the foot o’ the peak we was on, We run down to meet ’em an’ found a _ man an’ woman standin’ by the side o’ the basket. The man hed a gun in his hands IN GREENLAND. 791 an’ seemed sorta leery of us, till we sed ‘Howdy, stranger?’ then he dropped the gun an’ sprung a line o’ French on us thet only Barney could sabe. “After they’d jabbered an’ gestured, specially the Frenchman, fer a while, an’ the lady smilin’ till she showed the fillin’ in her back teeth, Barney turned ter me an’ interduced me ter the pair of ’em. ‘* Tosh,’ he sez, ‘ shake hands with Mon- seer Andray an’ his wife from Paris. They’re out No’th Pole huntin’.’ I told him we ain’t seen it anywhere round here an’ are kinda mixed on our latitude an’ longi- tude ourselves, fer this kentry looks like South Jersey, except there ain’t no mus- keeters an’ no signs o’ human bein’s, they bein’ the first we’ve seen since we lost our way an’ got blowed inter unknown parts. “The monseer was mighty perlite an’ glad ter see us an’ so was his wife. He sed we'd made ourselves famous in scientific. circles an’ thet Barney’ S name was a house- hold word, an’ mine soon would be ef I kept on. y ' “ We invited ’em to dinner, which was straight wild goat meat an’ a little hard tack; after we finished they brought out some shampain an’ we got so friendly thet we agreed ter keep together. The monseer got out his instruments fer takin’ scientific notes an’ fust off took our elevation over sea level, findin’ out after a heap o’ kalka- latin’ thet we was thirty-seven miles below the level 0’ the sea, an’ there was a middlin’ stiff down grade ahead of us, the way we was hikin’; then he took an observation ter — know whar we was, reportin’ 87 minutes 2 seconds no’th latitude an’ 59 minutes 4 seconds Jongitude west from Greenwich. This showed us thet we was in a hole where the crust o’ the earth was so thin thet the inside heat het up the hull country in spite of it bein’ so near the pole. ‘“Monseer Andray could talk English a little, an’ when he seen I didn’t sabe his French, he talked it. He was all worked up after he got our position, an’ depression insted of elevation. ‘““* We have,’ he sed, ‘ make de gran’ dis- covery. “We are in de Hole.’, | ““ Veah,’ I sez, ‘we sure be! Barney can’ me hev been in it ever since our ol’ comiicloookks