Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

heal ~ “« = to Steve Brown. He was old Abe Whit- tlesey, the town drunkard, in whose defense Steve had lately clashed with the police. The carts would make the Watkins ranch by sundown, rest there overnight and finish the trip to Boulton on the morrow. At the Frazer place things were lively, Nell, clad now in khaki, was sending Mig- uel with a wheelbarrow load of red-hot dried-apple pies for the work camp up the canon, where stood the tents, near enough to the house to be neighborly, far enough away not to be a nuisance. Smoke rose from the cook tent. Men were washing up for supper. A dozen black mules munched hay in the corral. Enough ore had been blasted and broken that day, Nell said, to start six carts on the road next morning. “And you have done it all without a cent!” exclaimed the convinced Mr. Wheel- “Tl say you are a wizard, young man.” Nell’s brown eyes looked up at Steve and echoed the sentiment. But when, late that night, she and her _ father sat on the porch, with Stephen Brown between them, there was only sorrowful re- Br, proach in those eyes that had so warmly beamed. The men from Denver had gone to bed, A splendid moon filled the cafion with light and spread a carpet of tree shadows across the dooryard. The creek sang its never- ending song, “ Stephen,” spoke Daniel Frazer, “ who told these men our mine was for sale?” - The sharpness of the question was not lost upon Steve. “Because it is not for sale, you know. Certainly not to men like Tudor Wheeling, I wonder you brought him here, after our experience with Lutwell.” “TJ didn’t ask him to come,” Steve re- plied. “He says you encouraged him to think he might buy us out.” “Tf he makes you an offer, there’s no harm done, is there? You don’t have to accept.” 4 “ The harm, Stephen, is that he was led here by an assurance, clearly stated to him, that the mine was in the market.” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘His coming won’t hurt us, sir. It’s good advertising. He will go back to Den- ver and talk. By and by the right people ‘will hear—”’ “The right people, Steve?” This query was Nell’s. The moment had come to which her young man had looked forward uneasily ever since the evening when he had con- ceived his great idea, down there on the bowlder among the tree shadows. He drew a long breath and took the plunge. What he was aiming at, of course, he said, was to sell the mine for the Frazers at a suitable price, or to bring to their aid enough capital to make the mine pay. The selling method he had chosen was getting results, Tudor Wheeling had not been the first inquirer from the outer world. The Dorado Litharge Corporation, with millions to spend, had also been attracted by Dick Lambert’s publicity. The Litharge people had an agent in Boulton this week, — nosing around at the smelter, securing sam- ples of the Frazer ore and shipping them to Denver by registered mail. Tudor Wheeling’s visit was a blessing in disguise. It would become known to the Litharge crowd and serve to whet their in- terest. “In fact,” Steve concluded, with more boldness than the silence of his listeners warranted him in feeling, ‘“ everything is playing into our hands. Lutwell and Laird went to the courthouse with Lem Quinn to look at your title. that we had something good. Result: he gives us credit for all the hardware we need. Poor old Hummel gave us our biggest boost of all when he raided our labor meeting. And now Lutwell, I hear, is trying to buy the smelter so as to control our output. That will help us with the Litharge people when they get wind of it.” “‘ So,” said Daniel Frazer in a strange, new, chilled-steel tone, “ all this activity on your part ’—he swept his arm toward the sleeping work camp—*“ is only a pretense, a sensational trick.” “‘T call it good business,” Steve replied. “We defraud no one. We simply take a new way to tell the world what we’ve got. Instead of hiring a high-priced promoter, 3 A connielooks That proved to Lem, (EO)