Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

CHEDDAR CHEESE. Se 7 Se = - ing with the sidewalk jam, “if you'll be good enough to let us through—there are two of us needing a hot bath and breakfast ) “worse than a stray pup ever needed a ~ bone.” A couple of hours later, at a table for three in the Intermountain dining room, Barrett, bathed, shaved, clothed, and in ‘his right mind, was sitting opposite a bright faced young woman whose dark eyes were dancing. Between them, at the table end, sat the grizzled elderly man with the un- derslung jaw, methodically putting away his breakfast as he listened to his daugh- ter’s story of the adventures of the night. “What did you think when you came back and found that I was married, Dad- dykins?” the young woman asked. after the adventures had been duly spread forth. “ Huh!” growled the mine owner father, “you didn’t fool me for a single minute. Hogan met me at the train and told me you'd married a stranger from Tennessee; and I told him he lied. You see, I knew it was Jimmie you’d married, and not any- body else under the shining heavens.” “Of course you did. But did you really believe that Jimmie had stolen two hundred thousand dollars from his own bank?” “The elderly man looked up from beneath - his shaggy eyebrows at the two younglings, first at one and@ then at the other. ‘Til leave it to you both!” he exclaimed, “if it didn’t look that way. How was any- body going to believe anything else?” “You were entirely justified,” said Bar- rett equably. ‘Tt was up to me fo prove that I didn’t. But I should never have been able to do it if Della hadn’t jumped in and helped. It was her good work and wit that kept me going. At the very last, when we were chasing those fellows out of town, I wanted to turn back. TI thought -—we were on the wrong trail. But Della —wouldn’t have it.that way; and her hunch was better than my logic.” _._“Humph!” grunted the methodical = breakfast eater. “What gets me is what came afterward. If anybody’d asked me a : week ago if my soon-to-be son-in-law would _- go out in the woods and pick him three pro- —— fessional S28 and — single- Sn handed, and bring ’em in all mussed up and 7 hogtied in their own equipment—” Barrett laughed. “ Your soon-to-be son- = in-law might not have been equal to it; I doubt very much if he would. But, you see, a married man has certain responsibili- ties that can’t be shirked. After my wife had led me right up to the jumping-off place, what else was there for me to do? Just think; if I had crawfished then whata ~~ — life Dela might have led me all the way down through the years!” A grim smile flitted across the granite - ss face of the elderly man, “The way she tells it, it looks like she = tried her prettiest to make you crawfish— — and you wouldn’t. You didn’t need to make the fight. You had the money and could have got away with it.” “Oh, well,” said Barrett, half embar- rassed; “those fellows had it framed up to send me to the pen and I thought it was only fair to give them the same chance they were trying to give me.” ““T don’t suppose Jimmie ever will admit that he didn’t do it just for fun,” the young wife broke in. “ But if you ever say again ge that he isn’t red-blooded—” The grizzled fighter of many rude hattles = = of the mining camps grunted his disclaimer. “T shan’t,” he agreed. “I ain’t aimin’ to get myself all tore up and gouged and bit - — at my time o’ life. But, SE Della, baby; it sure does do me a heap 0’ good to know that you’ve got you a he-man after all, when ~ it did Jook so cussedly unlikely a while back. And you can bet on one thing: if them plug-ugly miners up at the ‘Little — Della’ ever get on the rampage again and go to shootin’ up the camp I’m going to tele- graph for Jimmie to come and put ’em all to bed—I sure am!” “Well,” said Barrett calmly, a I don’t know but IT might try it. sens like keep- = = ing your hand in, once you’ve got it in, you know.” Whereat the young wife laughed and clapped her hands. “He’s called your bluff, daddy!” she crowed. But please don’t wire him until — after he has had a Bee target practice with @ six-gun.” A bell-hop came in with a telegram. LU Ss i > as