Adventure Magazine Cover — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

A Pot “No. It'd be me own secret. I’d keep quiet till I got in front of a bunch of mil- lionaires. Then I’d plump down me sam- ples and, ‘Gintlemen,’ I’d say, ‘here’s the gold. I’ve got tons of it. Come down and help me get it out. Then we'll all be rich.’ ” “But millionaires is rich already.” “Yeh, but was there ever one that didn’t want more?” “{ dunno. Millionaires is out of my line.” “Well, they do. Don’t you read the papers? Between scandals and divorces and races and-chorus-gels and what-not, millionaires has to hustle for more millions or else they go broke. Here. Take a look at this.” Mike reached back and produced a lurid feature section of a pioneer “yellow” Sunday newspaper, two weeks old but just arrived. Mike’s pudgy finger pointed to a page shrieking with headlines about a capitalist who got his son out of jail. There were pictures of father, son, two chorus-girls shot by the son, the jail where the son re- sided, a diagram of his cell, his menu, a group picture of the seventeen lawyers who got him out presumably at a cost of a million dollars, and a diagram showing how far a million dollars would go if placed end to end. “There,” remarked Mike. ‘‘There’s a sample. Now a millionaire like that’d be needin’ money. It stands to reason.” “T reckon he would.” “All right then. If I had a bang-up -mine I’d corral a bunch of millionaires. I’d show ’em where they’d make money.”’ “How would they go about it?” Old Mike had studied high finance from lurid newspaper accounts during his long, lonely travels over hill and plain. He al- ways took a stack of papers into the desert. He knew all about finance. ‘“That’s easy. Form a corporation—a big minin’-company.”’ “Then what?” | “Then go to work. These rapscallions around here might grab a few ore-wagons, but they couldn’t lift a whole corporation, could they?”’ “IT dunno. They’ve lifted the whole county. What’s a corporation compared to that?” “Yes; but a corporation ain’t so easy to pull up. She’s spread out too much—San Francisco, Sacramento, here and all over. Them bandits can’t ketch hold of it. There ain’t enough bandits.” of Gold II Old Pete was interested. He had seen a big mining-plant or two with their imposing buildings, and he visualized a similar possi- bility for his own claim. But he kept his poker face. ‘““Mebbe you’re right,” he admitted. “But where would you git the million dollars?” “From the millionaires.”’ ey eh.” Old Pete arose slowly and dusted himself. ““Mebbe you’ve got a good idee; but for folks iike us it ain’t practical.” “Why?” ‘We don’t know no millionaires.” To Mike it was a crusher. He had worked out his dream-plan in case he ever found a good mine, and now old Pete had knocked it into a cocked hat with five careless words. It made-Mike exasperated. ‘Aw, shut up,” he snapped. ‘Why, you or’nary old blister, you ain’t the kind that ever will. I wasn’t speakin’ of you. I was jest figgerin’ in case a gen’leman found a mine.” a He refused to enter into controversy; but he admired Mike’s general idea, so he lum- bered around and picked up seven copies of San Francisco newspapers which he took to hisroom. With the aid of a blunt finger he slowly spelled out whole columns of telegraph news, sports, styles, scandals, edi- torials and everything else while seeking for light on the best methods of floating mining-corporations. Each headline gave him a new sensation. Each picture furnished a jolt. In _ his lonely life Pete had forgotten civilization and now it was pulsing under his hands. He read about a big coming prize-fight. He noted the pictures of shapely choruses in musical shows. He observed the advertise- ments of good cafés and rare wines. He be- gan to realize he had missed something in the years that were passed. “T’ve got to go to the city,” he decided. “Mike was right. touch with a millionaire——” His eye caught a boisterous advertise- ment of a flagrant mining-‘‘company.” He read it from top to bottom, glowing at every howling rhapsody. PETE stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, then turned with dig- COmiclbook nity and hobbled down the street.- If I could only git in- ©