Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

JEREMIAH PARSONS—HE-MAN, It was not an altogether unrestrained joyousness and gayety that exhibited itself in Veterans’ Hall to-night. There was dis- cernible to Jem’s ever inquisitive mind an atmosphere of tension, of apprehensiveness. The laughter was seldom the hearty, un- blanketed burst of joyousness indigenous to .such occasions. Also an undercurrent of excitement made its drift apparent. Be- tween dances little knots gathered for snatches of agitated buzzing. New arrivals were eagerly interrogated, as if important news were being awaited. Jem knew the cause of the excitement. That morning the paymaster of the Nancy Hanks Mining & Milling Company, on his way from the bank to the mine, had been held up and robbed of his satchel, contain- ing some eight thousand dollars. He had been found, lying bound and gagged in the rear of his car, by the driver of an ore team coming into town, some three quarters of an hour after the hold-up. The bandits having been masked, their victim was unable to give any description of them. They had been four in number. They had sprung out at him from the bushes lining the roadway and covered him before he realized what was happening. As they had finished fettering him, a Ford tour- ing car had driven up from the direction of town, the driver being likewise masked. It had probably been standing around the bend, acting as lookout. The four bandits had got in and the car had then turned and driven back toward town. The sheriff, of course, had immediately gathered together a posse and was still scouring the mountains for trace of the highwaymen. No results had as yet been forthcoming, however. Jem, being a stranger in town, had been questioned, But as half the town was able to bear witness to the fact that he had spent nearly the entire morning, including the hour of the hold-up, perched on an up- turned nail keg inside the entrance of Pete Johannsen’s blacksmith shop, while the ar- tist of the anvil equipped Suds with a new set of shoes, the cow-puncher’s detention had been but of a few minutes’ duration. The excitement in the center of which he found himself, without being a part of it, ZA 657 added the seasoning dash of spice necessary to round out Jem’s contentment of spirit. The couples on the floor before him, circling and eddying, bunched into the cor- ner where Jepr was leaning. He uncrossed his ankles and drew his feet in closer to the wall. As he did so, the dancer closest to him stumbled. He lurched awkwardly in the effort to regain his balance and his heel came down crushingly on Jem’s un- offending toe. Jem winced; but in furtherance of the social amenities his face started to form a grin of cheerful pardon. The: dancer, however, seemed otherwise disposed. Angered, apparently, at the awk- ward spectacle he had made, he flashed on Jem in a rage. ‘Keep your damned feet out of the way!” he exploded. Jem’s half formed smile congealed—then dissolved. An infinitesimal spark struck across the clear blue eye. ‘You talking t’ me?” he inquired mildly. He still leaned against the wall and his arms still hung in a listless fold across his breast. “Tl do more than talk to you!” the other man roared in a strange excess of fury. “Vll mash in your ugly mug!” ‘Ugly mug!” A broad grin of derision broke over Jem’s face. His eye was deliber- ately and unmistakably insulting as it moved lingering over each detail of the other man’s features—from the heavy- browed, narrow-slitted, green eyes and the great, broad nose, flattened out at the bot- tom against the heavily mustached upper lip, to the deep scar that twisted the thick- lipped mouth into a perpetual, asymmetrical snarl. Up and down Jem’s eyes roved in pal- pable insolence. “Why, stranger,” he drawled at length, “J reckon you don’t need no police pro- tection t’ keep the ladies from mobbing you when you exposes your map t’ the public gaze.” A deadly stillness ensued. The music had trailed waveringly into silence at the first words of the altercation and the floor, with the bright dresses of the girls, was like a distantly seen field of motionless flowers. Those at the farther edges of the room oO CORMICLOO KS, CO) in