Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

Gaston Olaf and Big Business ‘““You!”? she murmured. ‘‘Why, I thought you’d. buried yourself deep in the bush away from the temptations of the giddy metropolis.”” She gathered her coat collar carefully about her white, round throat. ‘So you do come to town occasionally, Mr. Jam-Breaker?”’ “Occasionally. And on business only.” ““Yes.”” Her black eyebrows were raised quizzically. “And tonight—business only?”’ ‘“‘Business only.’”? Gaston’s smile began to match hers. ‘Particular business to- night; I came to hear you sing.” Her smile assumed a touch of calm skep- ticism as she studied him. “Yes? Big man makee soft talk for lil’ gal, eh? Well, it doesn’t look as if any- body would hear me sing tonight unless that bunch of Indians get through with their favorite outdoor sport so I can cross.” “Ah, ha!” laughed Thorson. “My first business tonight, of course, is to see you safely through said bunch of Indians. © Will you come?” A gap in the crowd presented itself, and with her hand on his arm they started to cross. But Indians engaged in such favor- ite outdoor sport are quick to shift their formations, and in the middle of the street there was a sudden rush and the pair found themselves in the center of a stern mélée. She did not cry out, but crept close to him, and he threw his long arms about her for protection. The rest was confusion. He thrust men aside right and left, picked her up against his breast and went through the mob like a charging bear. Presently they were standing in the stage-entrance of the Empire, and her arms were clasped tightly around his neck. ‘Ah!’ she murmured and looked up at him without moving. She closed her eyes and their lips met and clung to one another, and with a cry he tore her loose and set her down. “T shouldn’t have picked you up,” he stammered abjectly. ‘“‘But I was afraid you might get hurt; it seemed the safest wa ) ‘“‘SafeP? Safer’ She laughed unpleas- antly. ‘‘Oh, you mean you thought it safe because I sing fs She became silent. “You can forget it—you can forgive it, can’t your” “Forget it?’”? Her poise was coming back. ‘Suppose I don’t want toforget it? As for 93 forgiving’—she was her own self now— “‘you do it too well to need that, and you know it.” He took a step forward, but she was gone, a door slammed in his face, and he found himself staring at a small sign— ‘““Keep Out!” HE WENT swiftly down the street out of sight and hearing of the music-hall. He wanted a cigar, a good cigar, the kind that a man falls back on in times of need, and the hotel stand was the one place in town where that commodity could surely be secured. He entered the crowded lobby with a sense of relief. In the essentially masculine press he felt strong again, and he plunged into the heart of it, shouldering and being shoul- dered, striving to efface the sense of weak- ness that rode like the scent of perfume upon him. a It was a crowd to his liking, lean faces with the hawk nose and the hard jaw pre- dominating. There were young men with these facial characteristics, just beginning to play the rough game of adventure who looked at their neighbors with open eyes, smiling in trusting comradeship; there were older men whose eyes narrowed to slits when meeting strangers, whose hard faces were uninclined to smile, hard-bitten men who had played the rough man-game and had grown hard and wary at its playing. As Gaston plowed his way through them to the cigar counter he noticed that it was a remarkably well-dressed throng for the time and place, but not until he reached the cigars, where a New York broker, with the Broadway puff under his eyes, struck the eye in full evening apparel, did he pause to consider. ‘“*A dance?” he questioned the clerk. “*A ball,” corrected the slick youth. “Big bunch of investors in camp, and Mr. Brad- ley’s giving a ball in honor of Miss Drake.” Dance music thrummed in the dining- room. Thorson drifted thither without knowing whither he went. The room had been cleared, the floor polished; a new or- chestra rendered the music from behind a platform hidden in tiny firs. ‘Some style!’ commented a new million- aire in mackinaw and sweater. ‘‘Sassiety’s the word, boys, and us old sourdoughs can hunt our holes.”’ COmicloo (©