Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

DESERT “ What was I doing before I finished up that gang? I have it, b’ God!” he cried with a dramatic exultation. “I was play- ing the phonograft!”’ He fumbled around on the floor eagerly, desperately. The sunlight was streaming in from a dozen crevices, flooding the dust filled spaces with flashing bands. He found the phonograph close to his foot, and set to winding it with a flushed, drunken insist- ence. “Damned if I ain’t been tryin to get a song out of this box all night!” he cried hotly. “And every time I get the crazy thing harnessed up somebody stops me.” He set to work in passionate earnest, as if his life depended on it. He was like a ship’s wireless operator trying to get his sending set to function before the sinking of the vessel. “First comes Tex Ringo talking this here philosophy to me,” he complained an- grily. “Then when I get a good tune hitched on he sends me up to investigate a murder at the Doxey House! Wow! Blooey! Damn!” This last oath came with a stab from the needle. “Then the old box starts rattling fine, when I have to get up and make a speech —a speech for the defense! Good God! Shank Miller speechifyin’. Haw, haw, haw!” - He stopped laughing suddenly as a surge of anger came over him. “Tt ain’t right! When I want music, I will have music, b’ God, and they ain’t nobody will stop me. They ¢ried to stop me. I had to fight off twenty men, twenty howling maniacs! I did it, too! “ Now if I’m interrupted again I'll mash their bones into a thousand pieces!” He gave the disk a whirl. “ There y’ go! Let ’er buck, b’ God!” No sooner had that little needle started its nerve racking squeak with its rhythmic rise and fall of mechanical voices than Shank Miller heard a hoarse, terrified shout blasting into his very ear. He turned around and saw crawling out of the débris, from the direction’ of Hallie’s room, a pale, wild eyed man. “ Who are you, I’d like to know?” Shank asked belligerently. “ You don’t like my ~ OA eee nw 7 —— “ed ato 2 ~> <— ~. > fa = 5 = - LS ma . = —> ~ - . ™. ox . > - * ttteg Sw ~: 4 a am) - r = So Le ee . ee Ae ae oe A a, iam VOICES. 785 music, eh?” He clutched the man by his two shoulders. ‘“ You think you’re going to interrupt me, too, eh?” “Stop that noise, for God’s sake!” the man simpered miserably. “ It ‘ll make me mad. Damn you! Don’t hold me here to listen to it. He said I’d hear it all my life; but I won’t! I won’t go crazy! T’ll kill myself first!” “ What the Sam Hill!” Shank exclaimed, lifting the man up and looking intently into his face. “ Ah, it’s you! The gent with a suit on—Mr. Fred Hayden himself! Well, why shouldn’t you hear it, I’d like to know? It’s good music. “ Here, stick your head into that horn. There you are. Ain’t that wonderful— ain’t that superbo? Ain’t that operatic? By cripes, that’s the only word to describe that thar music. It’s operatic!” He stuffed Fred Hayden’s head into the big horn until the victim drowned the mu- sic out with a desperate howl of oaths. “Let me go, for God’s sake! Tl go mad with the sound of it. Denver was right. He said I could never get the sound of it out of my ears. Let me go, or I will kill you!” Laughing uproariously at the desperate plight of the man struggling in his arms, Shank swayed and shuffled about with the rhythm of the music. “J danced with Tex Ringo to-night. I guess you ain’t too good to dance with me, if he ain’t. Come on; get in step! Stay offen my toes. I never allow for any man steppin’ on my toes!” It was a peculiarly uncanny effect that phonograph had upon the crowd outside. _ It floated up from the heap of ruins for all the world like a last pathetic cry from the throat of the old bar—a last cry for life. It was the old den’s swan song, ringing clear, thin, sweet, in the crisp morning air. It came—a ghostly voice rising from a house that the crowd had thought deserted —and yet, ghostly as it was, there was an uncanny sprightliness of rhythm about it, bringing the hallucination of gamblers, thieves, dance girls still pounding away at the Texas Tommy, the Sombrero Blanco, the lively Pollita! ~~ > its —— - SS - a a ~ — Fe = od — ~ “2 o ———— A = . - 4 © = e ~ . ~ a * “ - — eg a — om ij ~~ ge he , St a ie a o> a ag © Pn Re OP eet fe ee ee Om Fe — aa *s « i er