Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

GOLD. He had had a marvelous time on that whaler—from the moment he had cast dice on the deck, when he was brought as a stowaway to the skipper’s cabin, until the moment he had bade the white- maned old harpooner good-by. . The intervening events, the eating of food like manna from the hand of the angelic Priscilla, and the firing of that old horse pistol at the mutineers, all these events had grown more and more alluring during his week of hectic gam- bling on shore. — He thumbed through the pages of this Book he had purchased, still search- ing for the haunting words. “ And they took all the spoil and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.” No, he was on the wrong tack. He must search further. ‘And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight.” This was getting too personal. The girl had spoken of green pastures. It was about that that he wanted to read, so that he could imagine her voice teaching him. It was a melody that haunted his ears like the incomplete memory of a tune It tortured him. He began to think it would be hard to find a few words in so thick a book. It was hunt- ing a needle in a haystack. But he read once more: “ Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know that for my sake this great tem- pest is upon you.” Every word he read seemed, per- haps because of his own mental atti- tude, to breathe of the Cape Cod. He was fairly of a mind to take a trip out on the bay and go aboard. But he thought better of it. He knew very well what sort of a reception the skip- per would give him. The skipper would thank him for helping him in that mutiny; but on the other hand, he would reach for a be- laying pin to settle that point about his daughter’s insensate fascination for this heathen. 87 Needless to say, he could not find the words she had taught him. They were unquestionably marked in this very Book, but Dorsey gave up the search as a hopeless task. Besides he was late for his appointment at a gaming house where he was to meet a New England deacon, who like every one else from the Alcalde down to the toughest “ Hound,” had got the gaming fever. Up until this night Dorsey had been blessed with a run of luck at another house, the elite Parker House; but the miner stipulated that he wanted to go to the Gold Rocker in order to hear the song bird that San Francisco was going wild about. Caring much less for women or song than for cards and strong drink, Jim Dorsey had paid little attention to the stories that were going about. He knew there was a woman from the fleet on the bay who was entertaining at one of the frontier barrooms. But there was nothing so extraor- dinary about her having come from a ship. Half the population had come from ships, and the other half from across the prairies. He had no reason in the world to think that this was the angel of the Cape Cod. In fact, if any man had suggested such a lunacy, Dorsey would have called him a silly ass. He went now, for the first night, to the Gold Rocker House. At the entrance there was a chow stand, kept by a Chinaman. A black kettle of soup was simmering over a coal fire. A sign read: Hash, low grade, $1.75. guaranteed, $1.00. Eges, not On the counter was a small pair of scales. ~ The Englishman ate his usual eve- ning meal, washed down with rum, then poured some of the dust out of his whisky bottle, and the Chinaman measured it out. He then went to the gaming tables. A Bearded miners were playing at EOPMNIE MOO KS Eo