The Argosy, Vol. 82, No. 3 — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

(Ssh ae =< per hy William Wallace Cook A TWO-PART STORY—PART TWO. SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS ALREADY PRINTED. ARTIN REEVES has gone from the East to the West to seek his fortune. Not readily finding it, he takes up with an offer to be the Tenderfoot in Castle’s ’49 Camp, which, failing to make the Zone at the Frisco Fair, arrived on a mysterious errand at Nugget Notch, patched up out of Rattle- snake City. Lady Ann Bobbett is one inducement for him to remain, but fresh mystery crops up when Judge Brand arrives on the scene and hints that Lady Ann is really the daughter of his old friend, Hugh Adams, and heiress to a fortune. But nobody can make Judge Brand out. He appears to believe that the members of the camp are genuine Westerners, and invites five men of nerve to ride down the gulch with him on the old stage-coach used for the fake hold-ups. Reeves volunteers first, and so shames four others into doing likewise; but after they get going down the dugway, the four drop off one by one, and only Reeves remains on the box beside the judge, whose sanity he now begins to doubt. CHAPTER VI.—(Continued). MEN OF NERVE. RACK! é The lash sounded like a pistol shot just against the ear of the off forward mule. The animal jumped sidewise, and a sickening fear plunged through Reeves as he felt the hind wheels go over the trail’s edge and the whole after part of the coach slump and slide. By then, the judge was standing up ply- ing the whip furiously. “Pull, you long-legged imps!” he roared. The slipping ceased, and there was a nerve-racking grinding and complaining on the part of the shaky old Concord. Would the vehicle hang together? Would the harness hold? Would the strength of the mules be sufficient to drag them clear of danger? For a full minute Reeves scarcely breathed. He felt tremors in the battered framework beneath him, as though it were all about to fly into scrap like the lamented one hoss shay. But, by a wonderful decree of chance, this did not happen. — The mules strained in their collars, the coach came forward and, presently, was rolling onward and downward on its wheels. Reeves, his eyes shut and his hands rig- idly gripping the seat, presently became aware of an easier motion and the mules at a trot. He opened his eyes as one who comes out of a nightmare to find the judge holding all four lines in his left hand and lighting a cigar with his right. They were in the bottom of the gulch and proceeding comfortably along towards the camp. Judge Brand tossed away the burnt match, took a second cigar from the breast 540 Go DOOKS (C@