Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE. “Lovely eyes, Taterleg.” “And purty hair, too. Makes a feller want to lean over and pat that little row of bangs.” | “T expect there’s a feller down there doin’ it. now.” The spring complained under Tcterleg’s sudden movement; there was a sound of swishing legs under the sheet. Lambert saw him dimly against the window, sitting with his feet on the floor. “You mean Jedlick?” ‘Sure. He’s got the field to himself.” Taterleg sat a little while thinking about it. Presently he resumed his repose, chuck- ling a choppy little laugh. “ Jedlick! Jedlick ain’t got no more show than a cow. When a lady steps in and takes a man’s part there’s only one an- swer, ‘duke. And she called me a gentle- mantoo. Didn’t you hear her call me a gentleman, duke?” “TIT seem to remember that somebody else called you that one time.” Taterleg hadn’t any reply at once. Lam- bert lay there grinning in the dark. No matter how sincere Taterleg might have been in this or any other affair, to the duke it was only a joke. That is the attitude of most men toward the tender vagaries of others. No romance ever is serious but one’s own. - ‘‘ Well, that happened a good while ago,” said Taterleg defensively. But memories didn’t trouble him much that night. Very soon he was sleeping, snoring on the G string with unsparing pressure. For Lambert there was no sleep. He lay in a fever of anticipation. To- morrow he should see her, his quest ended almost as soon as begun. There was not one stick of fuel for the flame of this conjecture, not one reason- able justification for his more than hope. Only something had flashed to him that the girl in the house on the mesa was she whom his soul sought, whose handkerchief was folded in his pocketbook. He would take no denial from fate. He lay awake seeing visions when he should have been asleep in the midst of legitimate dreams. A score of plans for Serving her came up for examination, a S77 hundred hopes for a happy culmination of this green romance budded, bloomed and fell. But above the race of his hot thoughts the certainty persisted that this girl was the lady of the beckoning hand. CHAPTER VIII. THE HOUSE ON THE MESA. VEN more bleak than from a distance the house on the mesa appeared as. the riders approached it up the winding road. It stood solitary on its desert promontory, the bright sky behind it, not a shrub to ease its lines, not a barn or shed to make a rude background for its amazing propor- tions. Native grass grew sparsely on the great table where it stood; rains had gut- tered the soil near its door. There was about it the air of an abandoned place, its long, gaunt porches open to wind and storm. As they drew nearer the house the scene opened in a more domestic appearance. Beyond it in a little cup of the mesa the stable, cattle-sheds, and quarters for the men were located, so hidden in their shel- ter that they could not be seen from any point in the valley below. To the world that never scaled these crumbling heights, Philbrook’s mansion appeared as if it en- dured independent of those appendages. “* Looks like they’ve got the barn where the house ought to be,” said Taterleg. ‘“‘T’'ll bet the wind takes the hide off of a feller up here in the winter time.”’ “It’s about as bleak a place for a house as a man could pick,” Lambert agreed. He checked his horse a moment to look round on the vast sweep of country pre- sented to view from the height, the river lying as bright as quicksilver in the dun land. ‘““ Not even a wire fence to break it!” Taterleg drew his shoulders up and shiv- ered in the hot morning sun as he contem- plated the: untrammeled roadway of the northern winds. ‘“ Well, sir, it looks to me like a cyclone carried that house from somewheres and slammed it down. No man in his right senses ever built it there.” “People take queer freaks sometimes, ELOOO (C(O) S (C(O) mM