Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

670 ‘“ Are you going after our friend Wammy again or just getting ready for him to go after you, Susie?” I inquired as brash as you please. She jerked her head up to look at me with a surprised expression and I noticed she kept her eyes on my face like some- thing fascinated her. “T didn’t know you, Mr. Duffy McFie,” she laughed. ‘‘ Why should I?” I got her and stroked the little beard I had started right after the river fracas and which had done right well for three weeks’ growth. “Why did you do it?” she demanded, and I suspected that only politeness was stifling a laugh at my expense. “Insulting remarks from the other clerks to the effect that it couldn’t be done. Do you approve of the result?” “ TImmensely.” “ All’s well that ends well,” I said. “It ‘ll be a good disguise now that our friend Wammy is on the warpath again.” I laughed sort of foolish and wondered if she’d suspect it was because I was afraid of Wambold that I’d let the atrocity grow on my face. “I gathered he didn’t like either of us overmuch,” I finished lamely. ‘“‘T reckon not,” she agreed. “So you come in after a regular gun, in preparation?” I tried to question her. She was too sharp for me, though. Her smile said nothing as she asked: “Have you one yourself?” “You think Pll need it?” She was studying my face again, but I had a feeling she was looking at the new beard 1’d raised, rather than trying to figure out whether I was nervous about old Wam- bold. However, she said: ‘One never can tell. It might worry me if I were tied down here in the city like you are. But I am off on a trip to the moun- tains.” She hesitated and again her glance turned from the guns she was examining to my face. “ Haven’t changed your mind about joining the law enforcement depart- ment, have you? A little bunch of us are going up to the Blue Ridge after a still we have a tip on. Better go along.” “What do you want me for, when you can see so plainly how scared I am of Wam- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, bold? I'd make a hot officer!” I said, feel- ing a little sheepish. “You aren’t afraid of Wambold?” she challenged. “ You licked him once in a fair fight. What you are afraid of is Wam- bold’s general reputation for cussedness.”’ ‘‘ Whatever it is, it bothers me to think of that old reprobate running loose here in the city,” I told her. “ Yes, I think I'll turn revenuer—or whatever you call your- selves now. It ‘ll give me a chance to get away from that moonshiner’s vicinity, for I presume he'll go back to his old river haunts.” V. ‘FHERE were three of us going up on the train, three of us in the auto in which we rode to the village where we ourselves be- came mountain folks to all outward appear- ance and three of us on horseback, working back into the little known but far from un- settled stretches of the Blue Ridge. The three were Miss Nancy Grey, who once more wore the gingham dress and displayed the muddy toes that first introduced her to me; myself, thanking the hunch which had made me grow whiskers, for they sure did lend a countrified air to my phiz; and old Deacon Crosby, as we christened him. Deacon was fat and lumbering, but he had a quick eye and a sturdy figure for all his sixty years. His nose was reputed as capa- ble of sniffing liquor at a distance of five miles. The job ahead listened simple. These two old-timers in the service knew the loca- tion of a hidden distillery, but they didn’t know who owned it, which was rather an im- portant point in making convictions. It hadn’t been worked for several months, they knew, because one after another operator of their office had kept a cautious eye on it from a proper distance and disguise. Now they’d reached the conclusion, they told me, that the still might be a stall. That is, they had it figured that some- body in that neck of woods was hep to the fact that this particular still was spotted and was letting it set there unused, a bright spot, while he, she or they worked another one that was better concealed. All we had to do was locate the other one! GComichbooks (C@