The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

828 : their efforts to argue her out of going forward. But they might as well have held a debate with the wild west wind or sought to lure the soaring buzzards from their stately flight. Natalie just would go. “Go back! All of you eef you weel! I goon! I go!” There was no place left for protest, argument, or coaxing after that. She turned her back on them and stared hungrily at the great silent mountains. Love laughs at locksmiths, every one knows; but the love in this little lady’s heart laughed impudently into the very face of the mystery and the colossal might of that heaven-piercing range. “Some uv us—two, I reckon—has vot to go with her. We cain’t turn her loose in them mountains ” one of the punchers said worriedly. “Reckon I’m the one!” Fritz Sorg said slowly. “‘ I know dem mountains de most.” Sorg was a combination of miner and puncher well mixed with Dutch. His fitness for the expedition was ob- vious. Even if the other boys did not dissect the thought, they had it—that the phlegmatic Dutchman had the tem- perament, as well as the knowledge, to guide and restrain the mercurial little creature who kept them guessing most of the time. : “You fur one, Sorg. An’, fur the love uv Mike, don’t let her play hop- scotch on the ragged edge uv none uv them chasms, Silsby’ll fire us all ef she busts herse’f ur anything!” the first speaker observed. “Tl go with Sorg.” A grim young giant stepped out be- side the stocky Dutchman. ‘The two of them made one of those limited fra- ternities which form in the mountains and on the range. Stephens was ten years Sorg’s junior; but they were pals in the very best of ‘what the word means, Natalie turned like a flower with black wings. She actually looked like oe _* THE ARGOSY.. that lovely impossibility, Her face bloomed with the iridescent happiness which could make her features radiant, so warm and gay and _ bewitchingly sweet that perfumed and brightly col- ored blossoms rose instantly on the canvas of the mind and surrounded her like a frame. Her loose black hair had grown to be the favorite toy of the wind. It spread and wrapped and tossed it lightly as a lover’s hand would have played with its dark wealth. ‘“ A-h!” she cried, then stood with her hands pressed against her breast, her slender body leaned lightly for- ward, her whole being expanding be- fore the more or less astounded men. “You are so good!” she went on after that subtly filled pause. “ With all the love I do not geeve to heem” —she waved her hands toward the mountains, and the boys understood— * TI love you! ” “Gosh, we won't git much!” ‘The red rushed up above the turned- back collar of her flannel shirt and in- to the cheeks of the girl. But her eyes laughed. “Even a leetle ees bettaire than— not any!” she called as she climbed into the saddle. Out ahead she rushed toward the mountains. The men gathered up the needed supplies and followed her. By night the three of them were going slowly along the trail by the stream. They found Silsby’s horse, and far- ther on Red’s. They left their own and went ahead on foot. Sorg emp- tied the bag of oats he had brought. He put the grain in little bowls in the rock and laid a slender line of it away from each tasty store, so that the horses would come upon it now and ‘then when the scarce herbage along the rocky stream-bed grew monoto- nous. He feared that they might need the horses badly and proposed to use a little guile to keep them where they could be of service. No ranchman would have hobbled them in a place .OO (E@) > - — =< ~~... a mie SS (E)