Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 157: what you’re looking at

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

‘N COUNT OF SOME ACCOUNT, and causing a big kick in many a feminine bosom. Gregg, whose sartorials at the weekly dances of the mill folk the previous winter had been as ornate as the workaday regimentals—to which everybody was ac- customed—were simple, was accounted by common consent the sheik of Blackwater. Nevertheless, because of ugly rumors, many an humble laborer in the mills had toward spring refused to allow his daughters to attend those dances because Gregg ire- quented the functions. Only by a narrowing of his insolent eyes, and a slight accentuation of his swag- ger did Gregg reveal consciousness of the battery of the girls’ glances. There was in the big room but one magnet for his gaze, ° of added value because he was cordially detested in that quarter, Briscoe had pulled away from him during a one-step and slapped his handsome face, while screaming to her astonished friends the explanation that he had “ held her too darned tight.” - Repeatedly since then had Greg ge sought to renew acquaintance with Mattie, and with no luck, though his persistence was fairly satanic. — At this moment she was the only person in the room who was unaware of the sheik’s entrance, him, her luncheon outspread upon the table before her. She was idly spooning at a saucer while absorbed in the columns of a newspaper. To her padded Gregg, stood behind her, then slapped a huge, hairy paw familiarly upon her shoulder. “Pussy speaking to papa to-day?” he growled, in a would-be jovial tone. Mattie B iscoe never looked around. She knew that voice. Her gaze remained glued upon her newspaper. Thoughtfully she removed the spoon from the saucer. Then, with a lightning movement and uwnerring aim she flung over her shoulder straight into the leering face above it the contents of the saucer. ‘“ Apple sauce!” purred Mattie. was just that. UP. rose the irrepressible laughter of the And it _And had been ever since the last dance late in the spring at Hook and Ladder Hall, when Mattie Her slender back was toward damsels gathered round the counting board. Growling, Gregg left the room, savagely wiping apple sauce from eyes and stubbled face. Back to the machine room he went, and until the change of tours at three o’clock he was as ugly as a soreheaded bear. It was, therefore, with added malice that, upon being relieved at the machine, he put into effect a quiet program which some days ~ previously he had arranged to be a climax for this very evening. Hurrying from the mills to the shabby little hotel where he lodged, he climbed into resplendent Palm Beach fabrics, white silk hose and polished brown Oxfords. A nar- row brimmed sailor straw, with a red, white and blue band, completed the sheiking. Over the hotel phone he then spoke a laconic message. <A point four miles away, in the city county seat of Kahuahgo, re- ceived it. | “Gregg speaking. All set. Come on down. Stop at the Blackwater Inn for me. We'll get ’em right!” At a little after five o’clock two touring cars stopped at the hotel, which was built opposite the mills the year after they had opened for business. Out piled sundry men, stalwart and palably of the square-headed and strong-jawed police type. These were greeted by Malachi Gregg, the demon ma- chine tender, looking in his almost foppish summer vestments, dapper, débonair and a bit devilish. A few moments later a wave of excite- ment ran through the Blackwater Mills with the speed and spreading quality of a prairie fire. Across the road and _ trolley track, down the graveled path which led through the strip of emerald lawn, came Mal Gregg ang the black- mustached, slouch-hatted, trim-waisted Sheriff Horace Vardaman. Behind them tramped no less than four deputies. Coat lapels were flung jauntily back in the rising evening breeze, and the official shields glittered. The squad passed William Elder, the aged retainer, venerable rounder of toil, who had been shaving the lawn. William paused in his endless circling. He leaned skinny elbows upon the handle of his lawn mower and watched the cohorts go by. William’s Comicbooks (E©)