Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

THE ELUSIVE Half way up the street, next door to Saloon Number Four, Wong Gee, proprie- tor of Red Bluff’s exclusive Chinese restau- rant, stood at the front entrance of his establishment and also gazed into the quiver- ing heat flashes where the dust haze rolled languidly onward, pausing occasionally to smash a fly on the partly opened screen. Solemn Johnson squinted his keen gray eyes, mopped the little rivulets of moisture from his steaming forehead, tugged uncom- fortably at his grizzled beard and said: “Tt’s hotter than double-barreled hades, ain’t it?” “ Well, of all things!” Dirty Shirt Smith cried with seeming irrelevance, sweat beads oozing down his leathery, sun-tanned cheeks into the tangled growth of brick-red whis- kers on the lower part of his face. ‘“‘ What do you think of that? Yonder comes the stage!” “Tt’s hotter’n seventeen burnin’ hells.” Solemn reiterated, glancing with a queer shudder toward Wong Gee, while a note of disgust crept into his voice, “and I et boiled pork and cabbage for dinner!” Dirty Shirt registered immediate interest. “ At Wong Gee’s?” he asked, incredu- lously. Solemn gloomily. “You et boiled pork and cabbage for dinner!” Dirty Shirt exclaimed, as if he couldn’t believe it, ‘‘ who ever heard of the like?” There was a moment’s silence. Solemn appeared reluctant to continue the conversation. “You et boiled pork and cabbage for dinner!” Dirty Shirt repeated, musingly. “ Well, in that case, I reckon we’d just as well go over to Saloon Number Four and get a drink, hadn’t we?” * T reckon,” Solemn replied, indifferently, “but I don’t see what in Sam Hill makes it so hot! Especially after me eatin’ that boiled pork and cabbage for dinner—”’ “Probably it’s a coincident,” Dirty Shirt interrupted, sympathetically. “ Boiled pork and cabbage is pretty oily!” ‘““ It was fat!’’ Solemn said drearily, with- out emotion. “Very fat?” Dirty Shirt queried, rising. Johnson nodded his head MULE, 253 “ Awful fat,” Solemn replied, also getting up; “ fatter’n usual!” “That accounts for it!” Dirty Shirt re- torted quickly. “‘ Wong Gee’s up to them tricks!” “It was terrible fat—” Solemn began plaintively, ‘““Wong Gee’s a Chinaman!” he cried with sudden passion. Dirty Shirt glanced around. ‘* That’s exactly what he is!” he almost shouted, “ Wong Gee’s a plumb Chinaman! He ain’t got no sense of proportions at all “—not a danged one!” “Nor of justice, nor eternal fitness, nor nothin’!” Solemn added vehemently as they moved slowly toward Saloon Number Four. Out yonder the dust cloud, hovering above the approaching stage, drew inex- orably nearer. Wong Gee, rigid and motion- less, still stood in the doorway of his café. His eyes searched the far horizon; his gaze did not waver but followed the thick dust- fume as it crept over the skyline above Hellfire Basin. Even when the stifling mix- ture of exudations from the mineral king- dom seemed lost in the depths of Rattle- snake Canon, Wong Gee continued to watch with almost fascinated intensity. At last Wong Gee’s vigil was rewarded. The stage clattered across the gulch; swung into the southeast end of the wide, single- sided business street of Red Bluff; the worn horses staggered to a stop in front of the postoffice and “ Keno” Wilson, the tired driver, flung the mail pouches to Colonel Spilkins, Red Bluff’s scholarly postmaster, justice of the peace, et cetera, who stepped forward to receive them. A moment later the door of the vehicle opened and Ah Fong, the single passenger, climbed stiffly down, lifted his blue canvas traveling bag and with the black cloth patch still fluttering over his right eye hobbled toward where Wong Gee waited at the door of the Chinese café. Ah Fong glanced neither to the right nor left, but as he passed the postoffice Colonel Spilkins heard him mutter: ‘* All samee one dam’ hot joltee lide!” Wong Gee rushed forward, embraced the ancient Celestial, murmured greetings in his native tongue and with his arms about Ah Fong led him into the restaurant. COnmmicloool< (C©