Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE. | 375 been lookin’ for ever since I was old enough to vote. I didn’t believe there was any such a feller; but there he is!”’ “What feller? Who is he?” ‘The feller that’s uglier than me. Dang his melts, there he is! I’m goin’ to ask him for his picture, so I'll have the proof to show.” Taterleg was at an unaccountable pitch of spirits. Adventure had taken hold of him like liquor. He made a start for the door as if to carry out his expressed inten- tion in all earnestness. Lambert stopped him. “He might not see the joke, Taterleg.” “He couldn’t refuse a man a friendly turn like that, duke. Look at him! What’s that feller rubbin’ on him, do you reckon?” “Ointment of some kind, I guess. Come on.” Taterleg stood with his bow legs so wide apart that a barrel could have been pitched between them, watching the operation within the shop with great enjoyment. ‘““Goose grease, with pre-fume in it that cuts your breath. Look at that feller shut his eyes and stretch his derned old neck! Just like a calf when you rub him under the chin. Look at him—did you ever see anything to match it?” “Come on—let the man alone.” “Wrinkle rempver,~- beauty restorer,” said Taterleg, not moving forward an inch upon his way. While he seemed to be struck with admiration for the process of renovation, there was an unmistakable jeer in his tone which the barber resented by a fierce look. ‘You're goin’ to get into trouble if you don’t shut up,” Lambert cautioned. ‘Look at him shut his old eyes and Stretch his neck! Ain’t it the sweetest—” uae man in the chair lifted himself in sudden grimness, sat up from between the barber’s massaging hands, which still held their pose like some sort of brace, turned a threatening look into the road. If. half his face was sufficient to raise the declara- tion from Taterleg that the man was uglier than he, all of it surely proclaimed him the homeliest man in the nation. His eyes were red, as from some long carousal, their lids heavy and slow, his neck long, and in- flamed like an old gobbler’s when .he in- flates himself with his impotent rage. He looked hard at the two men, so sour in his wrath, so comical in his unmatched ugliness, that Lambert could not restrain a most unusual and generous grin. Tater- leg bared his head, bowing low, not a smile, not a ripple of a smile, on his face. ‘“ Mister, I take off my hat to you,” he said. . “Yes, and I'll take your fool head off the first time I meet you,” the man re- turned. He let himself back into the bar- ber’s waiting hands, a growl deep in him, surly as an old dog that has been roused out of his place in the middle of the road. ‘“T guess he’s not a dangerous man— lucky for you,” said Lambert. The allurements of Glendora were no more dazzling by night than by day, there being few visitors in town, no roys- tering, no sounds of uncurbed gaiety. Fer- merly there had been a dapce-hall. in con- nection with the saloon, but that branch of the business had failed through lack of patronage long ago. The bar stood in the front of the long, cheerless room, a patch of light over and around it, the melancholy furniture of its prosperous days dim in the gloom beyond. Lambert and Taterleg had a few drinks to show their respect for the institutions of the country, and went back to the hotel. Somebody had taken Taterleg’s place he- side Alta on the green bench. - It was a man who spoke with rumbling voice like the sound of an empty wagon on a rocky road. Lambert recognized the intonation at once. . “It looks to me like there’s trouble ahead for you, Mr. Wilson,” he said. ‘“T’ll take that feller by the handle on his face and bust him agin a tree like a gourd,” Taterleg said, not in boasting man- ner, but in the even and untroubled way of a maa Stating a fact. ‘ “ Tf there was any tree.” “Tl slam him agin a rock; I’ bust him like a oyster.” ‘“] think we’d better go to bed without a fight, if we can.” ‘“T’m willin’; but I’m not goin’ around by the back door to miss that feller.” ECoOnniclboooks (C(O) mM