The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

MESQUITE RANCH, at assisting to get the young man off, and had observed that the wardrobe and sporting paraphernalia suggested a hunting-trip. It did not occur to him that Radford was leaving for good. The hundred dollars from his small store of cash, Radford had handed over to the butler with instructions to settle any small bills he might have neglected,’ had impressed Williams pleasantly; and he had considered it mere courtesy not to bring the unpleas- ant subject of Mr. Bullen in the way of the departing master of the house. That four hundred dollars with which he left New York had a brief and eventful history. He had about as much idea of how to economize it as a skylark has of heing niggardly with the melody which is its very breath. Two months later he traded off his shot-gun for a cow-pony of uncertain qualities and started out of the town of Pinon, Arizona, to get a bread-and- butter job as puncher for Silsby, one of the two big cow-men of the coun- try. He had worked in a mine in New Mexico till he acquired a kind of in- telligence about the busiriess. He had spent and lost his money. But he was not downcast. He had followed a leading, the memory of the little French girl and her ‘ Oncle’s estate’ near Pinon, with the same satisfaction that possessed him as he followed the brown ribbon of road across the plains. Indeed, he was rather set-up about himself than otherwise. He had met men face to face and fist to fist, not to mention eye to eye with pistol-barrels as the line of vision; and he had found himself out. He was not so bad a man after all. He grinned now at the recollection of the first fight. A big fellow with squinting blue eyes along either side of a well-tilted nose had brushed against him and leaped wildly aside, pretend- ing to be hamstrung by the creases which still edged his trousers sharply. The big man took his appreciation ‘cof the humor of his performance as a sign that the tenderfoot had not the courage to resent an affront. He re- peated his antics till Radford’s blue eyes began to blaze. ‘““Look here! Stop your monkeying or youll get sure hurt!” he threat- ened. He had seen the men draw closer, interested. “You mind your own business and you'll save yourself!” he went on as the big'chap persisted. “This hyah’s my vaycation! JI ain’t got nuthin’ to do but keep myself amused,” was the drawling reply while the six-shooter and the big brown hand got friendly. “Here’s something entertaining!” Ted replied, making the famous plunge that had won him football laurels. He upset the miner neatly in the dusty road while the pistol wasted fire on the large empty air about them. “Say, pardner,”’ the man sat up to remark admiringly, “you teach me that there cute little trick an’ I'll pay fur the crease in yer pants and help ye keep ’em nice.” Radford accepted the apology, taught the trick, and spent the last of his four hundred celebrating his own victory at the bar. But he did not be- grudge it. He was grateful for every happening that revealed the elemental stuff of manhood in him. He began to recover from the belit- tling feeling that he was a kind of male lily of the field that could not toil nor earn its salt. He was finding him- self, and, with a becoming humility, he eratefully acknowledged he was find- ing himself rather better than he had expected. A month before his unimpressive arrival at Pinon, Arizona, Alice Thorpe had superintended the: lifting of a tiny figure on a stretcher from the baggage-car of the train. It was little Natalie le Fevre. With the money that Bullen had left CORMICLOOO > 730° (C@)