The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 200: what you’re looking at

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

902 told Peggy she was to be spared con- versational burden. It was welcoming news to her fretfulness. Whoever he was, or whatever he represented, his treatment of her was all that could be desired. It occurred to her, as she lay watch- ing him, that his forethought showed his earnest interest and his eager dis- position to please, added to which was his gentility of bearing that proclaimed him a man worthy of every trust. But, even as this conviction took root in her mind, she discovered an indefina- ble trait in his manner. It mystified her. Some time after she was not so certain of him. There was business in his eye, she thought, flashes of it that she caught now and then, and a tightening of the lips—the calculating expression of a hard bargain-driver. She found herself awaiting these singular warnings, and the fact that they were absent when he felt her gaze upon him caused her no little specula- tion. And yet, in contrast to this phase in his demeanor, was his ready sympa- thy, his cheery, welcoming. smile, and his painstaking attentions. What must she believe? Afterward he went back to his map and his cigarettes and apparently for- got about her. The day was hours old when Peggy awoke. She was alone. Save for a dull pain in her head and her brain a turmoil of disconnected thoughts and ideas, she was conscious of a partial return of her old vigor. The sunlit tent-top was etched with the filigree of waving pine-boughs. Through the parted canvas-flap. she could see the forest-clad slope of a hill, and at its feet in the middle distance a thick grove of willows. She looked curiously over her quar- ters, noting at a glance that they were typical of the desert rover’s home. Odds and ends of adventure life held souvenir prominence upon the walls. They ranged from the corkscrew head- gear of a buck big-horn and sundry THE ARGOSY. well-cured hides to obsidian arrow- heads and = strange specimens. of “‘ water-lime ’’ formation. | Later, when she had made a more comprehensive examination, she was impressed by an odd fastidiousness for detail that prevailed throughout the place. She admitted to herself that the at- mosphere of neatness and system would have done credit to the most exacting housewife. She doubted her own abil- ity to duplicate it. Particularly was this true of the burnished pots and pans hung in reg- ular order behind the well-kept stove, and the glistening array of china in the cupboard. In one corner a fresh bouquet of wild flowers stood upon a stand artistically draped in Turkey red; in another unusual growths of cacti trailed or clambered from tomato-cans. Magazine half - tones in rustic frames occupied every available space, and gilded pine- cones were strung in one continuous line along the intersection of roof and walls. The bedclothes, even, were in- vitingly clean and comfortable, lack- ing those signs so characteristic of long service. So it was that, from observing these things, Peggy reached the conclusion that here was a man with the refined propensities of a higher-up civilization. She knew the denizens of those parts, and they were of a species. For the reason that the desert devel- ops shiftlessness, blunting men by checking off their wants to the stern basis of what they can get, the life was programmed, robbed of the frills of luxury, the unit of roughness. Who, then, was this exceptional fel- low—this man who still clung-to the worth-while bits of home comforts ?. And, since he was a stranger, what meant her presence under his roof and Pete’s continued absence? She dwelt upon this at length, but, try as she would, she could find no so- lution to the problem. Something had happened, but where, or when, or 6)(0\(6) COMEE <S) (E@)