The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

GOLD GRABBERS. He was coming out of that one-sided battle much better than he had any rea- son to hope. - Although bruised and sore, he was not seriously injured. For several minutes he lay at the edge of the canal, scooping up the wa- ter and splashing it over his face. Little by little his strength returned. The night wind whispered soothing- ly among the cottonwood leaves, and the song of the whippoorwill echoed from the peaceful shadows. But what was this? The bird, out yonder—what was it singing? With a painful effort he lifted his bruised and battered body on one elbow and stared in the direction -of the musty alfalfa-fields. Mara-keet-ah! Mara-keet-ah ! His face grew troubled. <A_ hot trickle from a flesh-wound on his fore- head overflowed and blinded his eyes. Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, he held it in the water and then passed it over his feverish face. “I’m a crazy fool!” he mumbled. What the whippoorwill said to the stars had long ago been established. Only his disordered fancy could make anything else out of it. His wits sure- ly had gone far afield to imagine “mara-keet-ah”’ the burden of those flutelike notes. What under heaven had possessed him, sick and suffering as he was, to think of “ Mariquita”’ in connection with that scrap of melody? Mariquita! Angel or she-demon— Lacey did not know which. Why, in that hour, was she in his thoughts? Lacey had been riding to meet the girl when he was shot from the brush. Very possibly, there by the town canal, she had inspired that clubbing of the man who was to take Lacey’s place. Bremerton, sopping the blood from his face with the wet handkerchief, cursed the name and her who bore it. At last he arose to a sitting posture, wrung the linen dry, and bound up his temples with it. He was a rifle-shot from the main street of the town, and he must get back to his hotel. 489 A glow of electric lights hung in the sky, well beyond the shadows of the cottonwoods. His eyes measured the distance between the canal and the far- flung maze of the arcs and the incan- descents. For a man with two good legs under him, the way was not far; but for Bremerton, in his present con- dition, it was very far indeed, and per- haps impossible. He tried to lift himself erect; but only half succeeded when he sank to the earth again. As yet he had ‘not mastered his aching nerves and mus- cles. He could crawl, at least, if he could not walk. On hands and knees, swaying uncer- tainly as he went, he made his slow passage toward the edge of the cotton- woods. On the scene of his struggle with Mallory’s bravos his groping fin- gers encountered something which puzzled him. | The object was round, about the size of his fist, and tied up in a cloth. At first he thought it a slung-shot, dropped by one of the miscreants who had worked their will with him. | He was curious enough, however, to grope in his pockets for a match, and then by its light to make a more thor- ough examination. Yes, at a time when another would have thought only of his physical tor- ments, Bremerton could give time and strength to trifles. In prospecting for gold a thousand trifles, carefully weighed, might lead to a “ strike.” Years of prospecting had taught him the value of the little things, and he did not neglect them. The cloth enclosing the round object proved to be a red cotton handkerchief, carefully tied. He removed the cord, the folds of the handkerchief fell away. and a small globe of frosted silver lay revealed. An exclamation of wonder escaped Bremerton’s lips.. The silver ball was a sphere of amalgam-gold coated with quicksilver, just as taken from the plates of a mill and squeezed in a chamois skin. The squeezing had COMicdoo S CO@