The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

512 is a bit hazy, yet, and didn’t realize what he was saying. Or you may have misunderstood him.”’ ‘“* He was sober enough and I didn’t misunderstand him.” Bremerton looked at the balls. The one he had marked was not among them. “ Well,” he added presently, “ of all the brazen stealing I ever heard of, this is the limit.” He leaned back in his chair, peered into King’s startled face and laughed. ‘What was the matter with Griggs- by and Lacey that they did not find the ‘leak’ in the mill?” he went on. “ It is so confoundedly simple that a blind man could locate it.” “T’m not blind,” parried King. “ It got past me, Bremerton. And Griggs- by and Lacey worried their heads off about the failure of the clean-ups to. tally with my assay figures.” ‘Take the amalgam back and put it in the laboratory safe, King,’ said the superintendent quietly. “ll ex- plain matters to you later on. I know why the bullion doesn’t tally with your assays of the mill-run, but there are a few other things I don’t know and which I must find out as quickly as pos- sible. Keep your own counsel. We'll get to the bottom of this, and some- thing will drop, and drop hard, before many days. It’s a wonder, by glory, that this mine is doing as well as it 1s, everything considered.” King toqk his bag of amalgam and went back to the laboratory. He was sorely puzzled and _ half-inclined to doubt Bremerton’s statement regard- ing the discovery of the “ leak.”’ CHAPTER XI. THE MOUTH OF THE ARROYO. OF Griggsby, Bremerton knew little, but for Lacey, Bremerton cherished the respect which one man of resolution and ability will always feel for another of his kind. A square look was all Bremerton had needed to get Lacey’s measure. And how had it been ‘possible THE ARGOSY. for Big Steve, so clumsy and barefaced in his thieving, to pull the wool over Lacey’s eyes? The deeps of human nature are a tangle of mystery. Why or wherein Lacey had failed, or what he might ulti- mately have accomplished had he been left to go on with his work, Bremerton could not pretend to guess. But this matter of Big Steve and the missing amalgam had yielded so readily to in- vestigation that the blindness of Brem- erton’s predecessors — especially of Lacey—was a thing for wonder. Bremerton reflected that his very first day at the mine had given him a clue. That clue had infallibly involved Bryden. This advantage, however, did not tell the whole story of Griggsby’s and lLacey’s carelessness or ‘incom- petenice. “It may be,” thought Bremerton, “that Big Steve worked differently when Lacey was in charge. The truth may come out sometime. I can’t be- lieve that Lacey was so gullible as the developments seem to indicate.” He need not bother about Lacey. Ht was his own battle and not Lacey’s he was fighting. There was work to be done that night. Closing and locking the desk, he got up and walked into his sleeping room. When he came out into the main office he had the automatic pistol in his hand. He examined the weapon for a mo- ment under the light, then dropped it into his pocket. With a whiff down the lamp chim- ney he filled the room with darkness. A moment later he passed through the door and turned the key in the lock be- hind him. Moving on the bunkhouse through the gloom, he took up a posi- tion behind a heap of stones—a posi- tion from which he could watch the quarters of the sleeping day-shift. He wanted to be at the mill so that he might test the night amalgamator as he had tested Big Steve. That part of his plans would have to wait, for the pres- ent. It was Big Steve’s trail he was fol- lowing, and he must run it out. COMicdoo S CO@