Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

664 ! was well back of the clearing, chasing around promiscuous, when it occurred to me that I had passed up the most likely place of all, the old beer hall, itself. I beat it back and, realizing that the human: ani- mal I sought probably was acute of ear, I put my attention to giving a lifelike imita- tion of a gumshoe artist as I approached the building. Starting from the river side, I began to encircle it. The front was falling to pieces fast, boards broken through on the old veranda dance floor, the windows busted, the door hanging on ifs hinges, very different from the well preserved look of the cabins by the clearing. I got around pretty near the back before I smelled smoke and realized, with inner convulsions, that somewhere around here a fire was being put to its proper use to cook food with. A lot of my caution forsook me. Even if some kinky-haired young agent of the devil had made off with my food, for which I was beginning most pronouncedly to hanker, the evidence of near by substitutes was sustaining. I hustled around the old beer hall. At the back had been the old kitchens and help’s rooms, in the palmy days of the establishment. Even in my hurry I had time to notice that the porch floor was all right here and the windows intact. One of the doors was standing open, there was a light inside, for by this time it was getting dusk, and some- body was stirring around. It was no time for formalities. I walked up to the door and knocked before my anxious eyes saw what was inside. A little slip of a girl, it seemed like, with blond hair coiled on her head in no sort of shape, her feet bare and an old, patched calico gown concealing whatever excuse for feminine form she might have, was working over the stove, producing appetizingly smell- ing chuck. The table was set for two people. And there on one corner of it was my missing basket of grub—it couldn’t be any other, our gang bought a number of them for use on the launch. Before I could let off the steam of indignation that was generating in me the girl, who had heard my step, turns toward me as cool as you please, saying: ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘Howdy. You been right smart long comin’ to your supper. I reckoned you’d be hungry long afore this, after that bath you done had.” When I saw her face I saw that my as- sumption that she was just a little girl was a bum guess. She looked about eighteen and might have been more. I glanced down at her bare feet. There was mud, a little, between the toes. This was what I’d been chasing around in the woods for two hours hunting for, all right. I was so dum- fuzzled I couldn’t speak. The girl started to get a painful red and snapped out: ‘Wal, come on in and eat. Ain’t you hungry? Cain’t you see your place there? I hope you washed.” “T will,” I says, and beat it out to the spring in back, as much to collect my feel- ings as to wash my fins. II. WHEN I came in I was more self-pos- sessed. This young person wasn’t going to bluff me any. What business did she have grabbing on to my commissary, anyhow? “You've got a nerve, going out there and confiscating my feed,” I objected. “Eat it afore you kick so much,” she came back with a flash in her eyes. I saw I was up against one of those untamed little she-wildcats you hear about in the moun- tains. ‘‘ Set,’ she says. I “ set,” but I still had gumption left to continue the subject. “What'd you swipe it for, anyhow?” I demands, as fierce as I dared. “Tf you ain’t et nothing ’cept a bit of corn-pone for two days I reckon you’d hook it, too,”’ she answered, defiant. “‘ Nothing for two days!’’ I looked at her keenly. She sure did appear drawn and worried. ‘“ You poor little kid!”’ ‘Shut up your mouth and mind your victuals,” she snapped out. But I noticed she kept passing me things, anxious like, and I knew that even if she had resented my pity openly, she was thankful for it inside. It was that which nerved me to say, when | judged a full stomach might have promoted more socia- bility: COmmMiCcLoooks (C@