Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

PRIDE. OF TYSON. him. One was pride; the other was the - thought of Garth, upon which he fed as if on meat and wine. But on this day even pride could not quite sustain him. He had fainted utterly away, as Rodriguez related to Garth. After that a frenzy took him. He had lasted through all the torment. Was he to fail here at the very end? He fell back on the expedient of exhausted soldiers on a forced march; he began to sing, and the rhythm of the music enabled him to drag through the day. A bitter day. At noon came the pay, but there was no time for Tyson to eat. Hardly had he received the money when the whistle blew one o’clock, and he had to go back to his last afternoon of effort. He had expected that the afternoon would be harder than the morning, but it was not. The point was, that his health had not been seriously weakened by the trial. He was lean. His stomach lay flat against his back-bone. But it ‘was the leanness of the hound. His heart and his lungs were sound. He did not dream it, but in case of need he could have done thrice as much. In fact, the fear of failure was more terrible to him than the actual hunger. The horrible fear of standing be- fore Garth and admitting that he was beaten! But the hours went more swiftly that afternoon. And at last the merciful whis- tle blew for the end of the day shift. It was like dew on the desert to Tyson! Outside the warehouse he paused at the hydrant and stripped himself to the waist and bathed. Then he went down the slope toward La Blanca. On the way he kept his head high, and the money for the -week’s work clutched in his hand—he dared not appear weak before these peons who glanced aside at him, murmuring: “ El Oro!” And so he reached the restaurant. All he remembered of it afterward was that there was a gust of warmth as he entered through the swinging doors. And in the breath of warmth there was a mingling of a thousand odors of food. Food! He did not see the faces of the -eaters around him. The table was a white TT smear before his eyes. All he knew was that food appeared on that smear, and he ate, ate, ate. His club brothers of Man- hattan would have shuddered to watch his manners; but Tyson had lapsed a few thousand years and become merely a healthy, hungry animal, feeding heavily after the fasting. After that he sat and smoked until his head cleared, his pulse grew more even. And not until that instant did the knowl- edge surge warm and sweet through his veins: he had won. He had played the part of the commonest laborer, and he was victorious! When he left the restaurant and stepped onto the street he was singing softly to himself, and walking in a happy haze, when he saw a thing that threw a ‘sharp heat into him—like three fingers of whisky in an empty stomach. For straight before him, a matter of a few paces away, came Rona Carnahan and a tall man whom he knew as Kennedy-— Kennedy, who ran the largest gambling- house in La Blanca, and who was, further- more, the star-boarder at Mrs. Irene Casey’s. It flashed upon the mind of Tyson that this might be the “big man” of whom Rona had spoken, for at this very moment Kennedy was taking a package from the hands of Rona and tucking it under his arm with an air of unmistakable proprie- torship. CHAPTER XV. DANGEROUS LAUGHTER. VET this was not what whipped the strength of anger through Tyson. It was the necktie of Kennedy—a very loud effect of yellow spots on a black back- ground, like the back of a gaudy snake! He stopped, glaring at them, but they walked heedlessly by. How should they take note of a common laborer covered with cement dust? fury took Tyson by the throat. tie on the gambler! A saving touch of the ridiculous sud- denly cleared his mind with a gust of His neck- cCoOmicoooks Unreasoning, childish — C©@