Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WE: & Kh ioe une 3] VOL. CLXXXII SATURDAY, SSS = SS =< hii — J DECEMBER 4, 1926 By HOWARD R. MARSH CHAPTER TI. SUN-BURNED HELL. ze EE it, Tin Can?” demanded Jerome S Starley of his little burro. “ Down there below, that dodging black thing. Looks like a man, doesn’t it? Yes, sir, a crazy man trying to dive and swim in the alkali sand. See it, Tin Can?” From the edge of Juniper Mesa the des- ert man stared intently across the sea of creosote and sage which rolled below him to the far horizons. Stalwart, weathered, motionless, he became an integral part of the rugged landscape, hewn, perhaps, from the sun-reddened granite walls behind him. His huge hands shaded his eyes from the aching calcium rays of the noonday sun; his long body tilted forward, poised, awaiting the decision of his mind. In the painful, unshadowed waite glare 1A the Mojave Desert unfolded before him, dancing and shifting as if it were a scene painted on a wind-shaken canvas. Heat waves rose from the gray-white sand, quiv- ering layer upon layer. They blurred the outline of the creosote and incense bushes, blended imperceptibly with the bleached feathery stalks of sun-dried sage. The palpitating air was a veil which ‘con- torted all the outlines of that waste land, a veil which threw every object into mo- tion. Bowlders, dazzlingly white under the sun’s rays, shook and shifted; Joshua trees, flora epitome of that heat-wracked region, waved their tortured, stunted arms; a black lava streak, gashed across the distant sand, rolled and pitched like a crested wave. Even the mountains in front of him, the far-away Panamint and Slate ranges, heaved their mighty bulks and shimmied into a menacing dance. 321 ° COPMICLOO© (F@