Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

160 drawn shade. The idea was growing on him. He checked a chuckle. “ll make ’em look like seven fools all right!”’ The man possessed one amazing talent, or trick, or mayhap sin, so nearly did he make it sinful at times. It was the ability to mimic. By the door he paused, and went _back to the street, and gathered up a hand- ful of pebbles. Then he went back and stood between the door and window. THE seven men inside were whisked from the drama of gambling by the voice of aa elderly man calling in a subdued tone outside the lightly flapping and sucking window-shade: “Nellie! Nellie!” Now there was a scrawny, pathetic-look- ing, sweet sort of girl of seventeen years or so, timid as a wild doe, who waited table at the hotel. A stranger need but sit through one or two meals to learn her name, and “Nellie” was all that these men knew about her, except Fags, who since coming from the city to escape the heat and taking the job of night clerk at the hotel, had spoken perhaps a dozen words to her. “A little night imtrigue,’’ whispered Morton-Dyer with a sly expression. “Her father,” allowed, Logical Jones. “The call boy,’ murmured Casey Jones. ‘Nellie! Oh, Nellie! You up there?” came the voice again, cautiously. -There was a whine in the tone, as might be expected from some shiftless ne’er-do-well of the type to go calling under a hotel win- dow atsuchan hour. The call was repeated. Almost at once the screen door opened. ‘“‘Nellie?”’ queried the man’s voice quickly. “Dad! Yes. What’s wrong?” The screen door closed, as if she had stepped out. “Nothin’ wrong. Is everybody in bed?” ““Must be, it’s nearly two.” “Listen.” s To the seven men within, an old man and a girl stood just outside listening breath- lessly to hear whether there might be any stirring in the lighted office. “All quiet along the Potomic,”’ said the old man’s voice in a moment. “But the lights burn.” “They burn all night. What is it, dad? Speak out.” ““Tisten to what I say, gal. Harken sober to what I say. I’ve struck it rich, Gold!” “Go-o-o-ld?” Adventure “Zssst! Keyholes has got ears. I found it on top o’ Kulshan, nuggets, where the heat’s melted the snow all off. Big as dove eggs; bigger, by !. And thick as hail on the grouind!”’ “Dad!”? “The top o’ that mount is a volcaner, like I always says. The snow is melted off the _ sides o’ the bowl, inside. There’s a big red- burned boulder layin’ there, and for a hun- dred feet around it the ground is yellow. Hold out your hands.” To the seven pairs of ears in the silent room there came the faint tinkle as of peb- bles being poured from hands to hands. ‘Nuggets!’ whispered Morton-Dyer. “The gods of hades!” He licked his lips. And outside— “Daddy! They’re heavy. break my fingers.” “YValler gold fer paintin’ dreams!” “Oh, daddy,” the girlish voice went on, “mother can have her black silk now, for church! And I can go to the Normal. And you can get you an accordion and go fishing twice a week. Daddy, tell me you ain’t a mockin’ me.” “Gal, Nellie, honest Injun, as I hope for my reward on high. Why, you feel the heft o’ the stuff yourself, and you can bite it.” “Tt’s—it’s soft, like lead.” “Pure stuff. An’ you keep mum, you understand. Not a breathin’ word to a livin’ soul. I’m a-tellin’ you because I got to have some money off 0’ you. For boots. I got to have ’em before I go back up to- morrow. I come to you now, just when I get in, because I didn’t want your maw a- questin’ and a-gabbling. She’d have to know.” They nigh Inside Fags whispered, all tense and try- ing to keep down a compelling cough. “Nellie! I know her and her dad!” Outside there was a chink of silver dollars. “Seven and a half,’ said the girl’s veice. “Nine-fifty, Nel. They’re nine-fifty, that best pair in Slade’s window.”’ More money jingled. The pebbles rattled again. A sob. “T’ll beat it out back here, Nellie. You get some sleep.” There was a whispered word or two, the screen opened and closed, footsteps sounded on the cinder path. comichook (ECO)