The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

CASTLES IN THE AIR. to his dismay that the men he sought were ~ not standing around in hotel lobbies waiting to be hailed by any chance stranger. On the contrary, he found dealers and agents who had been kicking their heels around the city for weeks without even coming to know the inspectors by sight. “So?” he muttered. ‘Well, if Mahomet can’t go to the mountain, then the moun- tain must come to Mahomet.” And he proceeded to accomplish this by wrapping himself in an air of mystery and pretending to be an emissary of Germany. The ruse worked. The British officers very promptly hunted him up, and when he had convinced them that he was devoid of hostile designs, were sportsmen enough to acknowledge the joke upon themselves and to give him all the information he de- sired. But before this happy result was at- tained, it must be confessed that Tom’s dramatic sense led him into some rather serious complications, not the least of which was his narrow escape from arrest on the suspicion of being a well-known interna- tional swindler and confidence man. Again, down in New Mexico he went through a rather baffling and annoying set of experiences in trying to locate his des- tination. All he knew of course from the conversation he had overheard on the Ess- bee was the name of the ranch where the horses were to be found, and he had started off with no other information, rashly ex- pecting to be guided by inquiring his way. But no one to whom he applied seemed able to help him. When he asked the way to Cherrichuppa Ranch, people looked at him as if he were demanding directions to Merlin’s cave, or the fabled castle of Otran- to, and gruffly replied that they had never heard of such a place. Wildly ‘Tom followed up various clues and suggestions, only to have them end in failure. Could it be, he asked himself, that he had heard the name wrong, or that the two-horse dealers had given it incor- rectly in their discussion. It might even be in another State, for all he could say. Time was passing rapidly, yet nowhere could he gain the slightest inkling to aid him in his quest. It was maddening in- tolerable to be balked by such an obstacle as this, when everything else had gone so swimmingly. And then one morning as he sat at break- fast in a railroad eatinghouse, and in the (31 easy, Western way fell into conversation with the man who occupied the next stool, he happened to mention the disheartening search upon which he was engaged. ‘“Cherrichuppa Ranch?” His companion gave a start. “Oh, you mean the Bar 7 X outfit down El Paso way. That’s what you ought to have asked for, and then anybody could have told you where to find it. Old man Salinger’s the boss of it.” His informant was a one-eyed cattle- man of distinctly sinister appearance, and atrocious table manners; yet so great was Tom’s gratitude and relief that he felt like clasping the fellow to his bosom. In the exuberance of his spirits, he dropped an indiscreet remark which led to some questioning by his new-found friend, and finally into Tom’s giving the latter his full confidence. ‘So, yowre after a bunch of old Saling- er’s horses, eh?” he drawled commiserat- ingly. ‘Well, now, ain’t that too bad? He sold off every last, lil, old horse he had to a friend of mine only last week.” Tom never knew what kept him from fainting at the news. The world seemed to reel wildly around him and the stars to shoot from their orbits. A great wave of sick chagrin swept over his soul. Only last week, eh? A few brief days had made all the difference between success and failure. While he was vainly seeking for the ranch with the unknown name, another had stepped in and had bagged the prize. It was a pure case of the malignity of Fate. As he sat there overwhelmed and de- jected, his companion finished shoveling the last huge knifeful of beans from his plate into his mouth, sopped up a remaining ves- tige of pork gravy with a bit of bread, and - wiping his walrus-like mustache with the - back of his hand, leaned over toward Tom. “Come outside when you’re through eatin’, pardner,” he whispered. “I got somethin’ I want to talk to you about.” Hurriedly Tom pushed back his plate—- all appetite for food had deserted him—and climbing down from his tall stool, he fol- lowed in the other’s wake. The cattleman led him down the platform and around the corner of a box-car before he spoke. Then, when satisfied at last that they were alone, with no chance of being overheard, he hooked a grimy finger in the New Yorker’s buttonhole. “Now, look here,” he confided, “I can NOOKS CONMUC (C@)