Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

DESERT lin, cornet—anything you gave him—it made no difference so long as he could work men or women into a passion. And a gambler, too, who busted men—” ‘Absolutely straight—though,” Hayden put in reminiscently. “ What difference does it make if a gam- bler’s straight or crooked? He ruined men—”’ ‘“¢ And himself—” ‘All right! That’s all the worse! He represented what you—what sentimental citified poets call the spirit of the frontier days. Drank like a hog—” ‘But was never drunk. I’ve heard that, too.” This also was a distinction Noah Doxey would not recognize. ‘He was a man—a master, if you want to call it—of sin, passion, of the ways of hell’s fire.” “The last of a great race,”” Hayden com- mented with the same exuberance. Doxey did not heed the interruption. ‘‘ And it was me who drove him out of town. Yes—the last of that race of heathens—of thieves, gamblers, gunmen! Since his time and his influence is gone the town Is a town of peace.” The nasal screech from the vestibule— the voice of Jen Parker—cut into Doxey’s tirade. ‘This here gal wants for to talk to you, Mr. Doxey,” the clerk called out. ‘It’s Hallie Crockett.” ‘“ Crockett?”? Hayden raised his eye- brows with a look of sudden enlightenment. “Ves! It’s his daughter—Dan Crock- ett’s,” the proprietor said. ‘‘ Dan Crock- ett, the gambler, the devil I chased out of town. Speaking of the devil—here comes his daughter!”’ Noah Doxey stepped into the vestibule with a feeling of self-elation common to business men when pretty girls ask for em- ployment. But here, meeting the full, bright gaze of the girl, he shrank, his head set- tling into a large celluloid collar. He real- ized he was ugly and that she—whether devil or angel—was a beautiful creature. He squinted directly at every feature of her face; the huge gray eyes, the smiling damask lips, the curl of silken hair about VOICES. 805 a slightly tanned forehead. In the dining room which opened wide upon the vestibule, Fred Hayden sipped his special brand of coffee and took small puffs from a fancy cigarette, deliberately assaying the frag- rance of each sip and each puff. As yet he showed no interest in Noah Doxey and his visitor. ‘““Now then set down here by the win- dow!” the old man ordered. The girl obeyed, seating herself in the wicker sofa and leaning forward. Doxey hunched himself in the brightly varnished ‘““ golden oak ” armchair, with a convenient and resplendent brass spittoon at his heel. Through the plate glass window Sun-up looked on; the stage driver pretending to be busy with a tire, a stocktender just in town from his range, a squaw and cholo, a youth from the telegraph office. They could not hear the conversation, but they could see Hallie’s lips—which sufficed. ‘““ Now, miss, if you want to see me about getting a job in this town,” Doxey said, “I want to know something about you.” ‘““T’m Hallie Crockett—my father, before he died, was known up here. He knew you.” “Yes, I knew your father, gal,” he said. *“* A very popular fellow. A Dixie gent—as they call ’em back in Texas. I don’t know rightly what we call ’em here in Arizona.” Further than this Noah Doxey, with the necessary respect for the dead, passed no judgment. ‘““He was a great man, our hands say down at the range,” the girl announced proudly. ‘Ma and I are just ordinary ranch folks.” She bloomed out into a smile again—the kind the onlookers were waiting for—the kind Noah Doxey said was of the devil. ‘‘ But when ma used to tan me with a quirt down in the stables, she said I inherited a powerful lot of my dad’s character traits!” “TI reckon you look like him,’ Doxey said. He did not know how to pay a com- pliment to a woman, but he was thinking definitely that the girl’s face was a beauti- fied copy of the face of the devil, her father. ‘My ma said I was to ask you to give me a job.” Ce Why?” COMmiclooe ©