The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 231: what you’re looking at

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

THE TAKING OFF from the family album in Mrs. Nash’s dimly lighted parlor. During the next few days the land agent cultivated Whitey Boone. He found the lad eating a wedge of Mrs. Applegate’s pie under a tree in a far corner of old Lem’s acreage, when he should have been hoeing potatoes, and dropped down into the grass beside him for a chat. He astonished Whitey’s palate with the first good cigar it had ever experi- enced and then led him on to gossip about Martin Nash and his career; how the farm had barely given a liv- ing to the family, and how Martin had been hard pressed for money a year before, when he lost his cows through disease, and how Lem Applegate, realizing the need of the Nash family, had been striving to buy the forty acres he coveted at a trifling price. The next day the genial Mr. Green happened by again for a little talk with Whitey about Joel and Andrew, but the lad was not nearly. so com- municative on that score. He looked over his shoulders nerv- ously when their names were men- tioned, and his replies to the careless questions of his new-found friend were halting and evasive. But if Mr. Green noticed that fact he gave no hint of it, and the two smoked more of the fragrant cigars Mr. Green al- ways carried and parted the best of friends. When the land agent reached his hotel that evening there was a tele- gram waiting for him. It was dated at Denver, and signed “ Sneed.” Have party under arrest. Acting ugly, standing pat and will fight ex- tradition. Save much work if you can clear up at that end. Mr. Green sat up late that night and smoked an extra number of. his ex- cellent cigars, staring at the wall of his little bedroom and thinking deeply. The next day, when he drove out the familiar road to Applegate’s farm, he encountered Whitey Boone near the cemetery wall, walking to town OF MARTIN NASH. 701 with a broken section of harness. The land agent stopped his rig and saluted him gaily. “Hol up a minute, Whitey,” he said, “I want to ask you something,” and he climbed down and joined the lad in the shade of an oak that had its roots in.the little graveyard. ““That’s what you’re most always doin’,” laughed Whitey; “ seems like you ought to make your livin’ askin’ questions.” “Well, I do, in a sort of way,” Mr. Green admitted, “but I want to ask you this because you know pretty much what’s going on around here. You remember the night Martin Nash was burned to death?” .. Whitey nodded, wonderingly. They had already discussed that affair in all its phases, “ Didn’t somebody die in this neigh- borhood a little while before that date —within a week or so?” . The lad probed his memory, frown- ing down at the cemetery wall. “Why, yes,” he said then, “ old Bill Stearns divi while he was sleepin’ in Sutter’s saloon one night. But he didn’t amount to nothin’ — why, the town had to bury him! He didn’t have any folks or anything around here.” “Do you know where he buried?” the land agent pursued. “Sure,” said Whitey confidently, “right here in this graveyard. I come over and watched the funeral—and there wasn’t much to watch, either. You ain’t any kin of old Bill, are you?” he asked with sudden interest. “No, Pm not, Whitey,” Mr. Green said, “ but the reason I’m asking you is I don’t think old Bill is in his grave any more.” Whitey gasped and turned pale with fright and apprehension. He reeled against the wall. “ You—you mean it was his grave they robbed?” he stammered. “Who robbed?” demanded Mr. Green, so shortly and authoritatively that Whitey fell on his knees, sobbing. Was COMicdoo S CO@