The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

GOLD GRABBERS. of all times, so that blame could be laid at my father’s door! He came at once and told me, and I rode to the canal to see how matters had fared with you. For my trouble I had only hard words and cruel suspicion. That is what hurts a woman—some women. It—it hurt me. I wanted you to un- derstand the situation, Mr. Bremerton, and I smothered my pride and rode to the mine for a talk with you. It would have been better if I had stayed away. | “Under the strain of all this wrong and injustice my father’s health is breaking. He has fought for years with misfortune, and just at the mo- ment when success was, within his grasp it was snatched away by Deane, treacherously, deliberately, cruelly. If he had done what he should that night in Phoenix, father would have sent the police to the town canal. But he was not himself; and when he had brought word to me it was too late. ““As soon as we came back home from town, I began trying to learn something about these others who. are fighting Deane. Night after night I have hovered about the mine. I saw Big Steve go to thé arroyo and meet Chombo, but I could not follow Chom- bo and find what he did with the amalgam. “The night of the capture | was close to Chombo when the shot was fired at you. I could not see the man who fired, but I heard him scrambling away. I took after him, but he evaded me in the pitchy darkness of the arroyo. “When I got back to Oak Flat I found you there, and O’Hara and the sheriff. Can you put yourself in my place and realize how I felt to hear from the sheriff that Chombo accused me of shooting at your I had just worn myself out trying to run down that skulking, cowardly scoundrel.” A feeling of sympathy for the girl had grown in Bremerton’s breast as she talked. He was. glad of the dark and that he could not see her face. Had there been anything more to impress 583 him in her favor, his sense of duty toward Deane would surely have suf- fered. “No doubt I have been mistaken,” said Bremerton slowly. “ After my interview with Lacey, though, the mis- take was‘natural. I am willing to set aside our past differences, Miss Mal- lory, and we can make common cause against these prowling devils who shoot from ambush, and rob and work under cover. Do you want it that way?” “What will be the end. of our work? ” she asked doubtfully. “We will drive them out,” he an- swered resolutely, “‘ and bring to pun- ishment those who murdered Griggsby and sent Lacey to the hospital.” “But apart from that?” she per- sisted. “Why, with the bonanza vein to draw on for ore,-I will equal the show- ing you and your father made at the Mariquita! Deane will unload the property for half a million, and—” “ And,” she cut in icily, “ you will receive five hundred dollars a month for your work and a bonus of ten thousand dollars! The half million be- lougs by right to my father and me. It goes to Deane; and we get—what? ” Bremerton had no answer for that. His knowledge stopped short of the Mallorys and their so-called “ rights.” Deane was his friend, his employer. When Bremerton gave his word about anything, it was as good as his bond. “You have nothing to say,” mur- mured Mariquita. “Now that you have listened so far, Mr. Bremerton, you must hear the rest of it. First, though, it will be well to go to the overhang and reconnoiter. [| do not imagine that the men in the gully have the slightest idea what has become of us, but it is just as well to be on the safe side. If you will wait here for a few: minutes—”’ “Tl do the reconnoitering,” he cut in, and groped his way back around the turn and to the mouth of the tunnel. COMicdoo S CO@