Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT. the khaki coat; it whitened the scarlet neck- tie and slashed trousers; it even misted the glint of the silver rowels. ‘You say you’re lonely, mister?”’ Herzog repeated. “ By that you mean—” “The soft voice of a woman drifting across the wineglasses, the touch of a jew- eled hand, the benediction of beautiful eyes—” ‘Pll fix you up,” Herzog said. ‘“ You're in the right pew when you come to the Sundown Café. There’s to be a fiesta.” The guest clinked his boots together with a flourish, beat up a cloud of alkali dust by striking his gauntlets on the table, then took a seat. ; In the absence of Juana, the innkeeper found it necessary to employ his wife in the capacity of barmaid. Thrusting into her arms a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses, he gave her a parting injunc- tion: “ He’s from acrost the border; and he smells somethin’ awful with perfume. Meb- be he’s from the city of Mexico or farther south than that. Who knows?”’ “ How do you know he ain’t a crimmnal? What would a Mex be doin’, ridin’ this far?” ‘“Mebbe so! But bandits in this part of the world are refugees—they ain’t got their bands with ’em. He’s the very man to trim, because if he’s a bandit he won’t sick the police on us. Go after him and strip him good and proper.” “There’s somethin’ queer: a Mex ridin’ a horse don’t belong in this part of the country, I’m thinkin’.”’ “You don’t have to do the thinkin’. Leave me do the thinkin’ in this café. All as you need to do is to get the guests which I point ’em out to you to buy some liquor.” With these remarks Herzog sent his wife in to meet the stranger. Cora had been very successful in the past as the Circe of Sundown Café. She had found it easy to turn its patrons into hogs with wine. Bargemen admired her yellow hair, which to them was gold; they admired her rouge, which to them was the delicately shaded pink of youth; they also admired her form, one detail about which they sustained no illusions: she was fleshy. 655 It did not occur to Cora that the little man with the piercing black eyes, high cheek bones and swarthy face could be very vitally different in his tastes from the av- erage water-front guest at the café. She went about her work with supreme confi- dence as well as, this time, with a vim. The man was handsome, romantic in ap- pearance, a very different sort of guest than the average water-front character. The fact is, his tastes were different also. He looked up at the large, heavy-set wom- an in the sky-blue wrapper, and by the expression on his face it seemed as if she had brought him a plate of torrijas which had been fried in bad eggs. “Let me light your cigarette for you, mister,” the lady of the house suggested graciously. The stranger held up the cigarette—a long, thin wisp wrapped in black paper. He puffed up the sparks, then leaned back in his chair, nonchalantly surveying the two seamen sitting at a table across the room. ‘“Where are you from, mister?” Cora asked, filling one of the wineglasses. ce Yucatan.” The lady of the house waited expectant- ly for him to say something besides the one curt word—something perhaps which would invite conversation. But as he continued eying the two seamen, Captain Jarvy and his mate, under lazy, blue-veined lids, she went on: “Yucatan, eh? A long journey, if you can believe what these here sailors tell you. On what ship?” “ T came by land.” Still the stranger gave no evidence of asking her to fill the other glass. “Ah, yes—they told me you’d traveled some distance; that you were lonely. Eh, mister—lonely, is it?” 3 ‘““No, I am not so lonely now.” Cora took this as a very definite com- pliment, and accordingly moved closer to the vacant chair. The guest made a wry face -over his glass. “ This wine has not soured, senor?” she asked. “Not a bit. It is delicious.” “The last time I tasted it, it was very COMMICLOOOkKS (C@