Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

340 shook her head defiantly. Her little chin was up in the air, her hands were placed firmly on her slender hips, her lips, usually smiling, were set in an obstinate line over her white teeth. Old Mateo stared at the girl uneasily. Even now he was proud of her, although it was evident that she had no intention of obeying the paternal commands. Her will was stronger than his, and he knew it. Suddenly a flash of cunning swept through his eyes. ** Angelica,” he said softly, “it may be that Jerome Starley is at Quartz City. Si- lent Jerry.” He saw a light leap across the girl’s smooth face, pause in her sloe black eyes and momentarily soften them. “1 know that Jerry is there,” wise old Mateo insisted. ‘ Joey Rivers told me he saw him not far from there less than one month ago.” “Jerry Starley!” Angelica “And what is Jerry Starley to me? twice in six years have I seen him.” “But eleven years ago when he lived with us for eight sucnibs—” “ Eleven years ago Jerome Starley was a boy, a thin, white-faced boy, and I was a silly little girl. Now he is a man, a big, brown, silent man, and Iam a woman. We have both changed, Papa Mateo.” “ Ah,” sighed the old Mexican, and a moment later: ‘‘ Ah, but you yet love him, my Angelica. Mother of God, why else have you waited these years, refusing to marry little Joey Rivers, and Sebastian Guerrero, and Tack Vari, and Walter Smith, the rancher’s son. Have I not eyes in this old head, Angelica, and a mind?” “ Bah!” The girl tossed her head, and the mass of black hair shone in the sun with dazzling sheen. ‘ Bah!” But that afternoon Mateo Chico and his daughter Angelica started northward with their four burros, toward Quartz City. repeated. But “We've struck it big at Quartz City. Come!” That was the message brought to Squint Vari, directly from Pig Grabow. Squint was the leader of the Vari gang now, since Blackie Vari’s murder. But his crew was diminished: only four remained. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Jerry Starley had finished one years be- fore in a claim-jumpers’ fight near Rhyo- lite; little Joe Budhouser had claimed the second in that drunken fight over Kettle Kate; a third, Sam, one of Blackie’s sons, had conceived the idea that he could hold up the California Limited single-handed, and was paying for his mistaken judgment behind the walls of the Federal prison on McNeal’s Island. Now of the Vari gang there remained only Squint, ugly, hairy, casty-eyed, but a resourceful, unscrupulous leader, his squat- ty brother, Pete, and the latter’s two sons, Mooney, and Tack. : These were quickly gathered at Pokato. Kettle Kate joined them. She explained that Pig Grabow had sent for her specifi- cally, and asked her to spread word among a certain class of girls she knew, telling them they were wanted at Quartz City. This she had done, and now was ready to proceed. The four men and the half-breed woman —an ill-favored party, surely—turned northward toward Quartz City, bearing slightly to the east after they rounded the Black Rock Hills. Sure of themselves, they were, and sure of the welcome which Pig Grabow would give them, as valuable rein- forcements. Fifty miles to the west of Pokato another expedition was organizing for the journey across the desert to riches. A party de luxe, this was, as any party must be which had Carol G. Winningham for leader. Winningham had first heard of the Quartz City tungsten strike while waiting in Mohave for a stage to take him over the Tehachipi. He was a Boston mining man who had just returned from a cursory examination of his company’s holdings near Johannesburg. Because he had made the fifty mile jour- ney between Mohave and Jonannesburg several times, and lived in that mountain city for a few days, Winningham fancied that he knew the ways of the desert, and the ways of desert men. So sure was he of his ability that when the first feverish news of the tungsten strike swept into the old wooden hotel at (€(0) NOOLKS AAI (E@)