Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

606 and not until then did the stranger look at him. “Sit down and join me,” invited Jules, with a bow. ‘I was but now occupied wiz the sought zat I was in need of a guest. Mrs. Skellog is a too generous provider.” “ Thanks,” replied the stranger. ‘ Glad to meet you, mate. You’ve got manners, whoever you are, wherever you got ’em from. Don’t mind if I do—an’ Vd mind like hell if I didn’t.” ‘“ After you” said Jules, with a wave of a hand. They sat down side by side on the little pile of cordwood, and the stranger grabbed a sandwich and tore out a mouthful that bulged his thin cheeks. He was in so much haste that he swallowed lumps which caused his head to jerk forward in their difficult passage down his throat. Jules felt alarmed for his safety, but was too polite to expostu- late. But even the largest lump went down; and by the time Jules had finished one sandwich, the other three were gone and the stranger was still unchoked. The chunk of cheese followed those three sand- wiches; but Jules managed to divide the pie with his jack-knife. The stranger sighed and rubbed his front gently with both hands. He turned to Jules with tears in his eyes; and Jules did not know if they were tears of gratitude or simply a result of the physical strain to which he had but now subjected his head and entire swallowing apparatus. “What about somethin’ to drink,” he asked in a faint but eager voice. Equipped with the only mug, a large one of tin, he drank all of the tea, with the ex- ception of one leafy and bitter swig which poor Jules drained from the bottom of the kettle. CHAPTER XXI. THROUGH THE STOVE-PIPE HOLES. then one for himself. “You’ve got manners, wherever you got ’em from,” said the stranger. “ J} got ’em myself—sometimes. I was hungry, mate. Maybe you noticed it?” J ee rolled a cigarette for the stranger, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘A good appetite, zat is all,” said Jules gravely. ‘* Well, it’s a good thing your own wasn't So good, or somebody’d be hungry now,” returned the other. He eyed Jules pleas- antly enough but unsmilingly, and still with that look of craving. ‘ My name’s Wil- son,” he continued. ‘“‘ Tark Wilson.” Jules acknowledged this with a how. “I am Jules d’Ance, at your service,” he said, and, after a glance at the cigarette between the stranger’s lips he set to work to roll an- other. The stranger looked at once young and old. No not old at a closer glance. He suggested wear and tear rather than age. Thirty, or thirty-five at the outside, would number his vears. He looked as if events had dealt more harshly with him than time. His week-old beard was carroty in hue, lifeless in sheen and texture, and thin. His face and hands and body and legs were all thin. His clothing was patched and darned and faded. His snowshoes, which he had been carrying under an arm upon his noise- less arrival, and which now Jeaned against the prostrate tree-trunk, were spliced of frame and bleached of web. ‘Did you come up-stream?” asked Jules. “Straight from the railroad, slam through the jungle,” replied Wilson. “‘ It was a rough passage. And them damn rackets! ‘They was all the time foulin’ each other. J was wrong-end-up half the time.” ‘You know zese woods, then?” “Not on your life, mate. I set a course and sailed it, that’s all.” He accepted and lit the second cigarette. “I’m kind of lookin’ for some one,” he added, and let it go at that. Jules waited politely for him to continue; but he continued to draw deeply at the cigarette and gaze around at the snow and the gray trees. The expression of his gray eves and gaunt, straggly whiskered face was still hungry and eager and tinged with somcthing between uncertainty and anxiety. He blew smoke down his nostrils into the sparse growth of his miserable mustache. ‘You are lookmg for some one?” mur- mured Jules at last. ‘“ Kinder—but I’m not sure,” returned Wilson. “ Not dead certain, mate. Kinder oO cComiclbooks C©