The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

GOLD GRABBERS. age. He was as big a fool, though, as Mallory. He could have extended the time for Mallory, but he was afraid. I had offered him twenty-five thousand better than Mallory was to give him, and his greed got the better cf his common sense. ‘Then, after it was all over, Carruthers got sore and began to holler. A lot of good that did him.” Bremerton sat quietly and listened and marveled. This was his old friend who was talking, a man who had shared his blanket and his waver- ing fortunes for years! _“Here’s something for you _ to store up for future use, Bremerton,”’ went on Deane, with the air of one who wished to see another prosper along the lines he had made his own. “ You’ve seen how I pulled this off. Quit being so blamed conscientious and profit by the lesson. Get busy on a scheme of your own. Nothing on earth to hinder you from getting where I am but your fool notions about what’s right and what’s wrong. Do the other fellow for a spell and don’t let him do you. Sabe?” “Qh, I sabe, all right!” answered Bremerton. “ Maybe it seems strange to you, Deane; but I’d rather have my fool notions than all your pile of dirty dollars.” “‘What’s that.?”’ snapped the other. “You're willing enough to take my dirty dollars, by thunder! Yes, and you helped me here. Don’t forget that. You're really the one who put this scheme across. That lost lead will do the trick. Griggsby couldn’t find it, and Lacey couldn’t find it. You got onto it, and you were my last bet.” “You've paid me a thousand dol- lars,’ continued the superintendent. “ Here’s the money. I don’t want it.” He flung the package of bank-notes brought to him by O’Hara on the table in front of Deane. The latter grew red and apoplectic. “What’s this, what’s this?” muttered choppily. he 555 “It’s the. money you have paid me. Now, you can’t throw it in my face that I’ve profited by your dirty work. My hands are clean for what’s to come. I have something also to tell you, Deane. I want to appeal to your sense of justice—if you have any left in your gold-seared soul. “Tt was Mariquita Mallory who saved me from Carruthers that morn- ing at the fork of the trail. My horse was dragging me through the swale. She stopped the brute. Yes, and when Carruthers and his gang were shoot- ing at us and driving us from cover to cover, Mariquita Mallory took me into the gully. “We would have been picked off by the bullets had she not led me un- der the overhang. That is how I came to discover the lost vein. It would never have been found other- wise, and this property would have continued to be nothing more than a poor proposition and dear at the fifty thousand you paid for it had Miss Malory not taken me into that tunnel.” Deane stared at Bremerton, his lit- tle eyes glimmering. But he had not a word to say. “You see how it is, Deane,” the su- perintendent continued. “ Merely as a matter of right, a simple case of justice, I'm asking you to deed a half interest in the mine to Mariquita Mal- lory.” When that ‘had taken length, breadth, and depth in Deane’s mine he gave vent to a roar of wrath. “You're working for me! What are the Mallorys to you that you’re so keen for them?” “Tm not working for you, Silas. To-night I resign. Carruthers is out of the running, the bonanza ledge is found, and there is nothing between you and half a million but a little time for putting rich ore through the mill. I want to say, however, that I am not going to help you rob the Mallorys when all the credit is due the girl. Get that?” Deane gave vent to another roar an COMicdoo S CO@