Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

136 Howle looked up. “Howdy,” he grunted. “Glad to see me, ain’t ya?” “Oh, yow’re nothing new. Couldn’t ex- pect me to act like a circus had come to town, could ye?” “Hardly. By the way, Bill, I’ve been wanting a chance to talk to you alone for a coon’s age. This looks like a good chance.” | Chauncey slid off his horse and went over to the edge of the stream. “Well, shoot,” said Bill. ‘“‘My vocal apparatus wasn’t made to carry on ordinary conversation across the Columbia Ocean: Stick that pole in .the mud and come over and be sociable.” “Tt’s you wants to talk. Come over here.” Whereupon Chauncey splashed off in the water and waded over to the rock where Bill was standing. Bill sat down, and Chauncey sat down beside him. “ Bill,”’ commenced Chauncey, “ you and I haven’t been very intimate the last decade or so, have we?” ‘““Not that you could notice.” ‘“‘ Kinda my fault, ain’t,it?” Bill looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘‘Can’t say that you have been overly attentive to cultivating my friend- ship.” ” “ Haven’t wanted it particularly.” “ Ditto,” returned Bill. ‘ But that ain’t neither here nor there,” pursued Chauncey. “ We've got one or two things in common I want to talk about now. For instance—Maggie.”’ “Leave her out of it,” suggested Bill. “Nope. That’s what I waded through all these mountain dewdrops for—to talk to you about Maggie. You want her pret- ty bad, don’t ye, Bill?” “That’s none of your affair.” “Tm danged if it ain’t, seein’ as how I want her pretty much myself. Well, what I was going tossay about Maggie ”—Chaun- cey suddenly dropped his careless brogue and assumed a more cultivated choice of words—“ is this. Maggie’s a pretty fine girl for either of us toe look forward to, especially myself. I think she kind of likes you, Bill. You’re a cleaner liver than I’ve ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. been, but it’s never too late to start in on the narrow way, and I’ve about made up my mind to start. I’m goin’ away for a couple of months, Bill, and while I’m gone I want you to do me a favor. Will ya?” “ Depends.”’ Bill reached down and put his finger in the water. ‘““OFf course. Well, it won’t be hard. I want you to do your darnedest to settle things between you and Maggie. She won’t even know but what I’ve pulled out for good, so you ought to make pretty good headway.” Chauncey slipped off the rock and start- ed to plow through the water to his saddle- horse. When he reached the bank he turned around. , “You see, Scream, if I get Maggie, I want her to be satisfied. Don’t want her feeling like she didn’t have a chance to do better. But don’t jump in the river, Bill, if she turns you down,” he continued, crawling on his horse, “‘ because I don’t think you’ve got a ghost of a chance.” Two days later, accompanied by a trunk and a suit-case, Chauncey boarded the stage for Mountain Home, and thence to parts unknown. To the townspeople he had sim- ply said he was pulling out. Bill couldn’t quite figure him. But he was pretty much certain that the “ dirty hound ” wasn’t so innocent as he pretended to be. He felt deeply concerned for Maggie, lest Chauncey had devised some devilish trick to lure her away from the protecting en- thralments of Pine into his own clutches— clutches was the word that suited Bill. All the more reason, then, why Bill lost no time in carrying out Mr. Wilkes’s proposition. On a Sunday afternoon Bill drove over to Mrs. Vlatchly’s, where Maggie stayed. “* Maggie, let’s go for a drive,” he sug- gested after they had talked a while and Mrs. Vlatchly had fed them some fruit and burnt-sugar cake and a glass of milk. ** Oh, let’s walk.” ‘* Suits me just as well.” They sauntered out the gate and up the road, chatting merrily of diverse topics. After rounding a turn in the road they climbed up a hollow for nearly a quarter of a mile and then clambered to the top of the hill and sat down on a rock. comicloool C©