Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

“IT WAS WAR.” tender lowered, he came up and slammed me on the back remarking: ‘“Some things worth being rich for after all, eh?” ‘“‘ For Heaven’s sake, what?” I demand- ed crossly. ‘“‘ That dump?” “ But your glass— haven’t you used it?” he cried, fixing his own on a certain spot and keeping it very steady.. I had used mine—for a_ ten-second sweep over the whole of that unsightly pile—and had decided that further in- spection wasn’t worth the strain on my eyes. To humor him, I raised it again. It was one of Louie’s many, and powerful enough to make Mars look like a good- sized marble. And I happened to hit the spot at which Louie’s glass was trained. Instant- ly I perceived that that ugly little island had a beauty all its own. She was almost half-concealed by one of the decrepit palm’s branches. But I could see two-thirds of her face, also an arm with the sleeve well above the elbow, likewise a glimpse of the belt that con- nected her shirtwaist with one of those narrow skirts they wore before they began to take half a yard off the bottom to make them fuller—and finally, a pair of natty, white boots that actually: looked small. I gave the screw of the glass half a turn, until she looked as if she were standing about ten feet away from me—and I was all for that island if I had to swim to it. Then she raised a huge pair of binocu- lars and pointed them straight at us. For an instant I dropped my glass, and so did Louie. It’s rude to stare at a pretty girl and have her see that you're staring. “Huh!” grunted Louie. “She isn’t acting a bit encouraging.” She wasn’t. If ever gesticulations bade one to depart full speed ahead or astern, immediately, if not sooner, and to keep on departing, she was giving us the high sign to get scarce. ‘“‘ But,”’ Louie muttered, ‘‘ I never was any good at reading signals. I think we’d better go over and make sure of what she means. Hey, Pete, is that ladder down?” big mine. 457 “All ready, sir,” Pete responded. ‘““Come on, Harry,” Louie invited me. And I went. ‘ I’d a lot rather have gone by myself. I’d have given a year’s salary as a wire- less operator on Louie’s yacht to have fif- teen minutes alone with that young lady ashore, in which to inform her that Louie looked intelligent only because I’d taught him about half of what I know; that he wasn’t a really tip-top, overgrown boy, but a half-witted boob; and that any money he displayed he had obtained by stealing from me enough to outfit a small gunboat and rob a Belgian relief ship. But the motor tender was a lot the fast- est thing that could get us across the shal- lows to that shore. So I got aboard it, and reflected glumly that the idiot hadn’t sense enough to leave me ashore; that he just took it for granted that a real girl like that would never see my brains over his little pile of gold. For most of the last half mile of that run I raised a faint hope that the tender would hit something that would rip half her bottom out. I could swim a good bit faster, if not quite so far as Louie. I kept up the hope until we were less than a hundred yards from shore, and could have talked to the girl if she hadn’t been holding her finger to her lips in a fashion that would have enforced silence on a class of boys at a baseball game. Then I reversed my hopes so suddenly that it jarred my whole system. We had hit something! Tom Healy, at the engine, reversed it as suddenly as I had reversed my. hoping apparatus. Nor he, nor Billy Nock, at the wheel, nor Louie, nor I had ever seen a mine of any kind before. But we knew we were seeing one now. | As I look back on it, it wasn’t a very But if the whole world ever looks as big to me as that mine did just then, I’m afraid I'll get worldly. For some reason it didn’t go off that time. But Healy was so scared he forgot to shift the clutch ahead again until we were backing up, and then the clutch comicloool C©