Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

THE SUN of the Rockies except Black Pete could ever git ye out of here alive.” “The High Priestess ought to know,” Tench offered, to see what the robber would say. ‘““VYe mean the white gal that runs this gang?” “T mean Za, the daughter of the Sun.” “The sun, my eye!” Pete cackled. “ She is the daughter of ol’ man McCarthy that blazed the timbers into the Blue Star Mine south of Tonopah.” Tench breathed very deeply as he heard this. He was well prepared to believe what the wayward desperado might tell him and with difficulty he concealed his eagerness. He shrugged his shoulders in affected de- rision, and responded dryly: ‘“ The heat has made you loco, Pete.” 7 “Loco, me foot,” the black-whiskered one vehemently went on. ‘“ Ain’t her pic- ture-been in the police circulars every year for the last eighteen year alongside of mine?” “For eighteen years?” Tench queried. “Why, Za is not more than eighteen now, and she has never known anything but life among the Mayans.” ‘“Mought be, but eighteen year ago she was two year old and some one stole her outa ol’ man McCarthy’s shanty in Tono- pah, the very week McCarthy made a strike. He’s had a standing offer of twenty thou- sand dollars reward for her return, dead or alive ever since.” “Tf her picture was in the police circu- lars, then it must have been that of a baby,” commented Tench. “You bet but a baby with yaller hair and blue eyes and white skin, just like this hyear Za. O’ course, it moughtn’t be, but I got a hunch it is. Anyway we can cop her, and bring her back to ol’ man Mc- Carthy, and claim the reward. They’s one thing dead sure that gal’s no Mayan.” “T don’t think she would leave these people,” Tench said, as if partly to himself. “ Grab ’er, take ’er, kidnap ’er. It’s wuth a chance at twenty thousand, ain’t it? Leastwise a fly kid like you oughta find her pretty sweet company on the way back.” “Tm afraid, Pete, that before you affect- ed your purpose, she would have you arrest- TEST. 573 ed and tried for a more serious crime than the one you are probably in here for.” “Holy snakes kid,” the robber yelled, ‘I’m in here for crime enough as it is. If I don’t beat it from here chop, chop, they’re going to fry me in the sun, and as for that yaller-haired gal, I ain’t got so much use for her. She’s nothin’ but a damned snob. I knew her quick enough when I seen her, with her picture alongside of me for eighteen year. But did she know me? Not on your tintype.” CHAPTER XV. “Up TO’ THE SUN. ENCH was eager to learn much more. How had Black Pete had an opportu- nity to see Za? Had he béen able to converse with her? Were there any dis- tinguishing marks beyond her yellow hair and blue eyes that had been noted in the police circular? If a child had been stolen from one Mc- Carthy, near Tonopah, Nevada, how had she been taken fifteen hundred or two thou- sand miles south into the land of the Mayans? Most important of all, had Black Pete conveyed to Za this theory of her ori- gin, or was it because of this that he had been placed in the penal chamber? He had no chance to ask any of these questions, for even as the desperado was telling him about the picture of the lost baby, he heard the oak leaves crackling back along the trail, and he knew that some one was coming from the direction of the village. Although he had not been told that it was unlawful to gaze upon the penal cham- ber, still he had no desire to be detected. Even if what he was doing was regarded as harmless he wanted to preserve the chance to come back to it and renew the querying of Black Pete. Therefore, with a hasty, soft call to the desperado that some one was coming, and that he must go for awhile, he hastened from the rocky lip, and soon was on the south side of the chamber, in the jungle. A few hundred yards away he stopped. A live oak with many enormous boles of- (E(0) DOOKS mie (E@)