The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

810 Neither Silsby nor Red knew of any better explanation for the peculiar fact. “Say, Radford, ye jes’ hike as fast as yer hoss kin leg it an’ see whut’s in yer trunk. Ef rt’s that thar deed, Pll go with ye prospectin’ ‘round whar the Cochinino’s located. Take my hoss.”’ Radford accepted the offer of the big black, Red and Silsby shouted advice about “humpin’” himself to the ranch- house. : Four days later Silsby rode over to satisfy his curiosity. Frederick Rad- ford had never reached the Mesquite Ranch. CHAPTER XIX. THE MESQUITERS IN ACTION, Sinspy raced around the _ ranch- house like a madman. He kept telling the men they did not know what they were talking about. Radford had come to the Mesquite four days before. Gradually the truth impressed itself on him that all of the punchers about the place knew Radford well enough to be certain they had not seen him. Silsby asked which shack he had oc- cupied since he came to the ranch. He was directed to one at the greatest dis- tance from the house. He hurried to it and pushed open the door. The lock on the frame bar- rier banged and clapped. It had been torn loose when some one had deliv- ered a vigorous kick just under it. The ranchman gave one quick glance about the shack and dived at the trunk under the bunk. It opened to his hand. Its lock was broken, too. The clothes inside were tossed about. He sought through and under them. ‘There was not a paper or an envelope. The envelope containing what might be a deed to the Cochinino Mine was gone. Silsby looked at the broken trunk-lock. He stepped back to the door and examined the Jock on it. Near them both were the marks of THE ARGOSY. boot-nails. ~The story they told him was that some one in a desperate rush had kicked open the two obstacles be-.. tween him and the deed. Naturally, it could not have been Radford himself. He would have had the keys. Then where was Radford? How had the thief known where the envelope was? What he saw and what he could not understand convinced Silsby of one thing. The deed to the Cochinino was not waste paper. Some one who knew was after it. The old mine had re- vealed riches lately, or some one who had been prospecting there suspected it would make a showing that justi- fed robbery and any other crime which would secure possession of one of the three original deeds to the claim. Silsby felt his heart pounding against his ribs. He was a prospector by nature, a ranchman by the delib- erate and wise choice which calmly de- fied the wild impulsion in him which prompted him to seek hidden treasure. But now the old desires leaped into red-hot life. He liked Radford. Some- thing about him had won and held the interest of the ranchman. With the promise of riches, the yel- low wonder lurking in the dark and hidden crevices of deep-sunk rocks, Silsby’s excitement fanned to white heat. He set himself the task of find- ing the young man to whom the wealth might belong and of being one to dis- cover whether the old Cochinino had really given up the treasure that sh had been suspected of hiding. There is in every man the fine abil ity to. lose himself in the cause or the ambition of another. Life had been chopped off with the same cruel blows that a vandal sends into the splendid body of a powerful tree; Silsby him- self was the tree. Curious impulses, which he felt but made no effort to analyze, urged his interest and warmed his heart toward Ted Radford and his cause. Perhaps the sudden blinding realization that his own child was a boy who might have COPMICLOOKS Com