Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

a MS oS bed ids) . his daughter Nan were sitting out in front of the stone and adobe house, listening to the music that came across to them in the white night. Next the Weasel played a little song that he had made up for himself—a song that seemed to him to express an old and heart- felt longing. “Oh, I’m tired of this life I’m living, This life in Poverty Town, TI wish the stars were dollars, And the thunder was shaking ’em down.” The Weasel strummed on. “With holes in all my pockets, The girls all turn me down. Oh, I wish the stars were dollars And the thunder would shake them down.” And then, while the old man and his daughter strained their ears to catch the words, the Weasel sang in a whining, smooth voice: “Oh, I’d get me a girl and a poodle dog, And I'd buy her a golden crown, And I’d make the whole world follow, My dollars’ jing-ul-ing sound.” He droned out the last, then laid down his banjo and lit another cigarette. Across on the steps of the house the old man and the girl sat, hoping he would play some more. But the Weasel was through for the night. He spread out his blanket on the floor, where the white moon could shine in on him, and soon dropped off into a deep sleep. TI. “ Pappy,” said the girl, “ T want to learn how to play the banjo.” “T’m willin’, but who’s a goin’ to teach you?” “Why, daddy, this funny little man, the Weasel, might teach me how.” “ But he’s leaving to-morrow.” “Oh, you could get him to stay, couldn’t you? He said that he didn’t know where he was going. And anyhow, you're liable to need a lot of help with the sheep. before long. If Owen lets us have that bluff and thicket pasture of his while the grass is so short, somebody will have to watch the sheep and look out for wolves.” “ TI] watch ’em myself,” declared the old man. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “ But, daddy, you’re not as young as you used to be, and you can’t go climbing all over the bluffs.” “Yep,” snapped the old sheep man, “T’m just as young as I ever was.” And so they kept up the argument for an hour, but at the end, after Nam had patted her father’s long hair, the old man gave in and agreed to make the Weasel a proposition the next morning whereby he was to herd sheep for his board and tobacco and spend his spare time teaching Nam how to play the banjo. “But all this depends,” old Masterson warned her just as he was going to bed— “it all depends on Owen letting us have that river range for the sheep.” ‘“Oh, I’m sure Owen will do that. You know, daddy, he’d do anything I’d ask.” “ Yes,”’ said the old man; “‘ and when I think of that boy owning the whole of the Oliver ranch it seems mighty funny to me. Why, his daddy, old Tom Oliver, would have killed me on sight one time, just be- cause I was a sheep man.”’ “But you were good friends before he died, weren’t you?” “Yes; old Tom was all right. It was five years ago, while you were away at school, that we finally got to be good friends. And he lived till two years ago. Seems funny now to think of how the sheep men and the cow men used to fight each other. A little sense would have kept ’em from having any trouble at all. ““ By the way,” asked the old man a lit- tle later, ‘“‘ when is Owen coming over?” ‘“* He told me he’d drop around some time in the morning,” said Nan, ‘“ You can talk to him about it then.” ‘““ All right. Good night, girl.” Silence soon settled over the old stone and adobe house. The only sounds came from the sheep pens. Now and then a bleat —sometimes plaintive, appealing, and some- times merely noisy—that was all except for the occasional snuffling sound that comes when a sleeping ewe decides to blow her nose. Old Man Masterson had a good little sheep ranch there, but not as good as it once was. And it had been a very bad - summer, The grass in his little valley was EOPMICGLOOO <S (E@)