Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

WHEN A MAN’S BROKE. dryly. “He is poor because he gives his money away. And being the kind of man he is, he has more friends than all of us put together. And not all of ’em are poor, It’s none of our business where he got this money, is it?” ‘“‘In smelter stock, you say, Mr. Dawes,” spoke Samuel Schwartz, his anxious eyes wide open. “The stock is to be chosen at our discre- tion,” Mr. Dawes went on. ‘“ Now, gentle- men, as a banker I don’t like to take a low- down advantage of an implicit trust like that. At the same time, as a director in Mr. Schwartz’s company I am prepared to grab this money as a windfall from heaven and use it to keep the smelter going, pro- vided there seems a chance for the smelting business to brace up immediately. Does this platinum thing offer any promise?” Schwartz was on his feet. “ Our pick- ings out of a thousand tons of that ore will be thirty thousand dollars,” he asserted. “ Tt will keep us afloat till September. By then the new copper from Mullica Hill will be coming in—” Peter Harley interrupted. Brown make good, though? he’s no account.” Benjy Dawes stepped to the window. “Look here, if you think he’s no good,” said he. In front of the Red Star Garage their late visitor was doing battle with a roughneck, whose name, if the gentlemen at the win- dow had cared to ask, was Howfer. They saw Howfer swing a heavy foot to kick. But the kick was never delivered, for something happened that caused How- fer to execute a sudden retrograde move- ment through the clear mountain air and land on his shoulders underneath the red pump. Next minute he was running for the railway yard. “ Right spang on the jaw!” cried Banker Dawes, in excitement rare for him. “There has been talk here to-day that makes me tired,” observed Moses Lambert, as the committee of creditors returned to the table. “Ill tell you how no-account Stephen Brown is. Through the worst night of my boy Dick’s life Steve Brown stood by him, though Dick didn’t know it. “ Will young Horner says 521 And when Dick opened his eyes in the field hospital next morning, there was Steve Brown, fighting the doctors for him.” Mr. Lambert glowered at A. P. Horner. “And J’ll tell you another thing. Both Dick and I have urged him to come in with Dick on the Pioneer. We've offered to make a job for him. But he won’t listen to us. He knows the paper is barely making expenses. Yet Horner calls him unsafe. Gentlemen, I move we extend Mr. Schwartz’s loans for three months.” Scarcely had the motion been carried when cries arose for ice water. The over- wrought Sam Schwartz had turned up his toes in a first-class faint. | CHAPTER VIII. FLOOD TIDE. T is not written in the Good Book or any- where else that there is virtue in admir- ing failure. If the neighbors who had frowned at Stephen smiled on him now, | they violated no law of heaven or earth. Boulton was his that week. The thing that did most to turn the tide of feeling in his favor was his behavior on the day of the so-called “ riot.” People said the witless town marshal and his deputies would have been slaughtered, and good enough for them, but for Steve -Brown’s presence of mind. And see how finely he acted when Mayor Doc Hamilton offered him Hummel’s job. Turned it down and asked the mayor to give the man an- other chance. All the town read about the riot. The Denver Globe printed a long piece about it on the first page; a piece written by Dick Lambert, who was the Boulton correspond- ent for that great newspaper. Big and black were the headlines: OFFICIOUS POLICE Raid Mass Meeting of Boulton Unemployed Challenge Right of Ex-Service Men to Learn of Jobs in New Platinum Mine Stirringly Dick Lambert told how earnest young S. L. Brown, “while coping single- = Comicbooks com