Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

ee he nd Sg eS tet. 8 sg i ag Ee, . oe = —+ ‘ i. = = = ~ * WHEN A MAN’S BROKE. He laid his cigar on the rail of the sum- merhouse and began a series of strange mas- sagelike movements, patting himself on his sides, his chest, his legs, until Laird brought forth from somewhere a small bottle and passed it over to him. “Saved!” Mr. Lutwell muttered, swal- lowing a tablet. ‘‘ Now let that woman’s coffee do its worst.” CHAPTER XII. A NEW START. N the first day of August there were queer, wide, cleancut tire tracks in the dust of Steve Brown’s side street as he came home to dinner. He had no- ticed them in Arapahoe Street, too, and, be- hold, they turned the corner with him. In the shade of the maples in front of his mother’s cottage stood a caravan of box trucks—motor trucks, all of a kind, all in army gray, all new; six of them. Small children were clambering over their sides. The neighbor women were out in a swarm to view the odd sight in-that quiet thoroughfare. And here came Dick Lambert, grinning, holding out his one hand—the hand that was such a good hand when a friend needed 533 spoke Mr. Horner suggestively, “ just let me know.” S. L. Brown escaped to the cool, dim quiet of home. after him, paused at the door and finished her entrance softly, and sudden tears blurred her sight. For a young woman whose cheeks looked much like roses had her arms around the young man’s neck and was kissing him where it would do the most good. “We couldn’t stand it, Steve,” said Nell Frazer some time afterward, “to see you working your head off for nothing. And papa had to make amends to Mr. Lutwell sooner or later, anyway. Besides, he want- ed to cinch a man of honor for a son-in-law when he had one in sight. And so—” But Steve had taken pencil and paper and was calculating weeks until December, tons per week, and other dry matters of a purely commercial nature. Their check to the Lutwell Syndicate at Christmas more than paid for the trucks. They paid all bills outstanding. They en- abled the Watkins mule ranch to show a profit for the first time in four years. They made it possible for eleven marriages to take place in the Boulton district around New Year’s. And, best of all, to Steve’s way His mother, hastening in help. of thinking, they deposited in Benjy Foes “ Congratulations, old bean,’ Dick was Dawes’s bank to the credit of the Frazer = : saying. family a sum of money closely resembling Yes, and here was A. P. Horner, brush- ing Dick aside to exclaim: “ Stephen, my thirty-two thousand dollars. Steve says there is a lot of comfort in dear boy, let me be the first one in town having an heiress for a wife in this uncertain = to tell you how proud of you we are. 1 world. speak, I believe, for every man, woman, These events happened last year. To-day and child in the community when I say—” prosperity has begun to visit Boulton “ Sign this receipt, will you, Steve? And again. here’s vour bill of sale.” If you follow the example of that ever- It was Max Herring, proprietor of the welcome goddess you will hear explosive Red Star Garage. “I think you'll find ’em sounds at times from the mountains west of : all in good order. Pretty, ain’t they?” town—sounds like the popping of machine : Steve stared at a painted legend on the guns. side of the first truck. The legend stared By this you will know that motor trucks right back at him as follows: are climbing Greenleaf Gulch up to the plateau, and so over to Frazer’s. There ; eee eee are a score of them in operation this year, c= S. L. Brown, Gen. Man. and the lode has. yet to show the first sign a “When you get ready to insure them,” of pinching out. ae Gomirlcbooks. com —