The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

152 for the station, purchased a ticket for Oakdale, and boarded an outgoing train. There was nothing for it but to keep on after him. At Oakdale my man left the train, hired a. rig, and drove to Knight’s Ferry, where you take the road to Jim- town, Sonora, and Angel’s Camp. I fol- lowed in the saddle. From Knight’s Ferry the road as- cends foothills, heavily wooded with pines, evergreen oak, and _ tangled thickets of laurel and manzanita. It is the old placer ground, marked by the site of many a deserted camp, and peo- pled only by little communities held to- gether bv isolated mines. Sometimes [ did not see a human be- ing for an hour, but inquiries at remote ranches elicited the information that my man was about two miles ahead. Somehow the stillness of the moun- tains had a dispiriting effect upon me. This may have been in some measure due to fatigue, as the saddle was not easy after a sleepless night, and I ride heavier than I used to. The hot glare of the sunshine, cut by the sharp blue shadows of the pines athwart the trail, grew wearisome and monotonous. It smelled lonely, too, if you understand what I mean. The solitude, broken only by the movements of the furtive wild things that my passage filled with curiosity or alarm, brought a train of gloomy re- flections. I began to wish I had arrested Spurz- heim at Oakland and trusted to the Hoff woman to complete our case. Also, I worried about Miss Fanshaw, since I could not but suspect that they had evil designs upon her and had in- veigled her from her hotel either by threats or fraud. True, I had left Weeks on the watch, but he was a new man and I had not seen fit to enlighten him upon the na- ture of the case I was investigating. What Spurzheim could purpose by this sudden journey to the old placer grounds I could not guess. But it struck me that if I were in his place, and sus- pected that I was being shadowed, I might lure my pursuer into just such a region and there throw him off the track, or—— (500 gle - THE ARGOSY. 4 I felt a violent jolt and a sick qualm. Half blinded and reeling dizzily, I caught a glimpse of Spurzheim rising from behind a rock which overhung the trail, with a smoking rifle in his hands. Then I knew no more. CHAPTER XXII. THE REPORT OF GEORGE WEEKS. You ain’t going to have the satisfac- tion of bouncing me, because I resign, see! A detective is nothing but a licensed Rubher Neck, anyhow. If I’d knowed as much about the graft when you hired me as I know now, I’d never gone into it, and that’s on the deceased. I can cop out fourteen a week easier than with you, and without doing so much rubbering. This is the last report you will get from me, so you can have it framed. | All day Tuesday you had me chasing a fakir that was working the slot-ma- chines. Nice business, I don’t think. Sixty-four saloons to visit, and me only allowed a dollar for expenses! ‘Talk about cruelty to animals! ‘Then Tuesday night when I reported, you fired me out to an apartment house on the hill to help Dougherty pipe off a man named Spurzheim that roomed there. Nothing doing, but me with my lamps to a gimlet hole through the wainscot till midnight, when we drills across the city, and I have to do a stunt with a@ newspaper guy. Do I get a license to wallop the bol- ster then? Nit, not. It’s Georgie over the ferry to Oakland and pipe off a house by his lonesome till an old girl comes out at six, when I trails her over to the city to the Ransome. Back to the suburbs again, and me planted in front of the same old shack while Dougherty follows the Spurzheim gent. He says he’ll be back in a minute. It’s getting to be a pretty long minute now. All the orders he give ine was not to lose sight of the woman. And me without sleep for twenty- four hours! Some of you stiffs in the office ought COL ElOOO (COL