The Argosy, August 1905 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

a 116 THE ARGOSY. ranch. By the way, Mr. Wallace, you will perhaps want a legal adviser. Many do around here. We should be pleased to have you for a client.” bos «Then count me as one,” I said. “It I need a lawyer, Mr. Jaffry, I shall call on you.” “Thank you.” A boy brought a buckboard to the door. It was drawn by two Texas ponies, tough, wiry, but not at all handsome. “The proper papers will be prepared to-morrow, Mr. Wallace, and we will drive out to see you.” “ All right, Mr. Jatiry; I’ll be on the lookout for you.” I got into the buckboard after Jones. I asked him all sorts of questions, elicit- ing the following information: My ranch contained two thousand acres. It lay to the westward of Mackinville about twenty miles. Mackinville was the nearest post office, though there were a few small villages between. The ponies trotted away at a good gait. The road was dusty. I was parched again. The air was too dry after a life in New York. My throat filled with dust. We passed mesquite groves and great cacti grouped together as if for mutual protection. : As we decreased the distance between us and my ranch, the scenery grew more desolate. We reached a place where there was not a house in sight. Grass was growing and cattle were nibbling at it. But it was withered with the baking sun and had little if any nourishment in it. There was a line of mesquite with a break in it. We drove through the break. Here was a small adobe dwelling, one story high, big enough for two rooms if the rooms were very small. Desolation was rife. Not a bit of water, not a spear of grass that had not been blighted by the heat. “This,” said Jones grandiloquently, waving his hand all around him, “ is your splendid property. This house the old man built himself.” : My heart sank down into the heel of one of my shoes. This—this vista of drifting sand and smothered grass—my fortune! This pile of mud my home! Not a soul to speak to! I got down from the buekboard and swallowed hard. It was tough. The old fool did have a grudge against me, after all. I thought of New York with its bril- liant lights, the display of fine dresses on the avenues, the places of amuse- ment, the sparkling conversation at the Press Club, to which I still belonged, and then—imiles upon miles of desert, a lot of scrawny, starving cattle, a few sheep that were dying, and a mud hut to live in—alone. IT had ten cents in my pocket. “You're a lucky man, Wallace,” said Jones. “ You've got the biggest ranch in Arizona.” “It looks to me,” I said as 1 contem- plated the vast waste, “that my uncle has left me all of Arizona. Who owns what's left? ” Jones laughed and drove away, leav- ing me alone—alone with my big ranch near Mackinville, Arizona. 3 CHAPTER VI. I STUMBLE UPON A MYSTERY. . | I warcHED the disappearing buck- | board as Jones drove down the lane to the mesquites, and when he had turned into the main road I laughed a grin, ; sardonic laugh. * At last,’ I said, “‘ Il am monarch of all I survey.” Tor a,moment the spirit of desolation seized me. But I was not of a despair- | ing nature, and*soon rallied. “There is this much about it,” I told ! myself; “ Richard, the old man left you this ranch probably because he didn’t | have anything any worse to leave. I wonder if he planted a curse anywhere | around here. The future will tell that. | Now, Richard, explore your magnificent . palace.” To tell the truth, I was somewhat agreeably surprised when I entered the place. From the outside the house looked more like a heap of sun-baked mud than a habitation. The entrance had no door, but was simply an irregular opening so low that I had to stoop to get inside,