Adventure Tales, Volume 6

by John Gregory Betancourt

  Hot Sulphur had just two diversions. One was watching for the water to bubble back into the pool and the other was watching the stage roll in. The whole town was on the platform that day.

  Foremost among it was Uncle Dudly—big, broad, and mighty crochety. With him were Pete Jewell and Monty Richards, proprietors of the Palace. Ollie Ferguson, who clerked in the Bazaar until the spring went dry, Dutch Charley, of the Delmonico short-order joint; Wun Choo, Charley’s cook; Pegleg Pringle, Stumpy Smith, Welcome Perkins, and Grouchy Smiley. In the background hovered Mr. Golightly in his wheel-chair, the invaluable Wilson at the push-handle.

  “Moses to Moses and all hands round!” sang out Alfalfa. “What you got in them bags, Chuck?”

  “Mail,” roared Chuck. “ Mail for Old Man Blue!”

  Uncle Dudly went up in the air with a yell. “Who says it don’t pay to advertise?” he whooped. “Seen anything of George Augustus, Chuck?”

  “Here,” I says, disturbing the mail-bags slightly.

  There was a rush and Chuck tipped me out of the bags into the arms of the citizens. They played football with me until I had to sit down on the platform and shoo them off with Chuck’s forty-four; my arrival, it seemed, had broken the hoodoo of thirteen men on a dead town’s chest.

  While the citizenship gave its attention to the mail Uncle Dudly grabbed me by the collar and pulled me around back of the Bazaar.

  “What’s the trouble?” I asked.

  “Trouble?” he snorted. “George Augustus, you don’t know the brand when you see it. You knew my hot spring in its prime; you knew it could cure anything from mumps to meninjeetus; you know that when the blamed earthquake ripped along and dried up the spring everybody not interested in real estate pulled out. You know all that, don’t you?”

  I was painfully aware of it. Hadn’t I been imported from Nogales to clerk the Hot Sulphur House, which Golightly’s money was helping to build when the spring went dry? The sulphur water was gone, Golightly’s money was gone, and every one and thing else was gone that had the price to go, while the hotel was an abandoned skeleton of two-by-fours.

  “George Augustus”—and Uncle Dudly buttoned the frayed Prince Albert over his ample chest—“a month has passed. You’ve been two weeks in Denver, trying to sandbag the money market—but you don’t know the first rudiments of the game. Stacking the cards or shifting the cut is a gift you didn’t inherit and can’t acquire. But, George, something has happened during that two weeks!”

  “Water come back?”

  “Nix. My superior intelligence has laid in a few licks and found a bonanza.”

  “Quartz or placerings?” I emitted huskily.

  “Neither. The thing’s off your sky-line, so don’t try to look till I ring up the curtain. The railroad is coming south from Happenchance: whether it hits Hot Sulphur or strikes fifteen miles east through Ace High depends on our raising a fifty thousand bonus.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said wearily. “You called a mass meeting and the citizens attended fourteen strong. You passed a subscription paper and got pledges to the amount of eighteen dollars and thirty-five cents, digging up enough for a one-way ticket to Denver and my six dollars expense money. Say no more.”

  “Let it pass,” and Uncle Dudly waved an airy hand. “We who are interested in Hot Sulphur real estate must raise fifty thousand. If the railroad comes this camp will be the base of supplies for the mining and cattle country. Ace High will pick up its slap-shanties and move over. Property will go rocketing, and we, the fourteen faithful stand-patters, will lay back in luxury. Our only hope was the spring, but we’ve got a better.”

  “The bonanza?” I inquired sarcastically.

  “Which is Ferguson—that drooping, sandy-haired, wall-eyed false alarm of a genus homo? He’s sprung into prominence like a wart on a sore thumb. Fergy had a rich uncle; lawyers wrote him from Chicago that he had been left one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars by his uncle—on conditions.”

  “They usually do,” I ventured caustically. “I had a rich uncle—”

  “Shut up! This scheme is gilt-edged. No one ever caught me standing on a housetop howling for the common herd to look and admire, yet for all that my faculties can pan out more color in an eight-hour day than you could show in a year. That’s me—George Augustus—dedicated to the interests of—”

  “Get to the point,” I broke in brutally. “I’m hungry.”

  “Well, Fergy must be married on or before his twenty-eighth birthday, or this rich, ripe plum drops into the lap of a Home for Superannuated Bachelors. Well, sir, Fergy rounds up nerve enough to come to me in the emergency. Being bashful and retiring as he is, how was he to fulfil his part of the contract? Would I help him? Would I? Would a Ute squaw reach out for a string of glass beads?

  “What did I do? Why, I called a mass meeting, suggested that we elect three citizens to comprise a Matrimonial Bureau, and then corral Fergy’s inheritance. I’m one of the bureau, you’re another, and Grouchy Smiley is the third. Our work is to get a help-meet for Fergy, with fifty thousand commission. I put an ad in—”

  “I saw it. Shove ahead.”

  “And you rode out with the first lot of answers. You follow me?”

  “It’s a little uphill,” I admitted, but I can keep in sight.”

  “That’s all I expect of you. Who’s the clear quill in this town, George A.?”

  “Old Man Blue,” I replied.

  “Your head’s level on that, anyhow. Run along and sit in at Dutch Charley’s for your afternoon provender, then come back to Alfalfa’s and help the rest of the bureau look through the mail.”

  I hurried, you can lay on that. When I got back to Alfalfa’s I found Grouchy and Uncle Dudly in the rear room, helplessly adrift on a sea of correspondence. Fergy, hovering, around a partly opened door, was nervously asking for photographs.

  “Scatter!” yelled Uncle Dudly to the inefficient bonanza. “This part of the job is ours. Come in, George.”

  “Hadn’t Fergy better be here to pass an opinion?” I ventured.

  “He can pass the spuds or the ants any time of day, but he’s not qualified to pass an opinion. When we locate the party, the ceremony follows Fergy’s introduction. The bureau will trail along in the rear of the honeymoon to Chicago and collect; the bureau will then cut loose, return via Happenchance, and lay fifty thousand in the hands of a grasping corporation. We’ll have Ace High too dead to skin.”

  “What’s the ante?” and Grouchy lit his corn-cob. “I’m tired. There’s a ton o’ this stuff and we ain’t got past more’n a peck.”

  “That’s the point which commands my attention,” returned Uncle Dudley. “Fergy’s past twenty-seven now, and he’ll be past a hundred before we wade through this. Then, I reckon, there’s more to come.”

  “How long’s the ad. in for?”

  “One issue. The coin I gave George wound me up. We’re going on what Stumpy can borrow at the ranch. George Augustus, admit Fergy and blindfold him.”

  Fergy tottered in and I hoodwinked him with a bandanna. Then, under Uncle Dudly’s direction, he floundered among the letters and pulled out a square envelope.

  “Good-by, Fergy,” said Uncle Dudly. “Get on the other side of the door now, and remember that you picked the lady yourself.”

  The bonanza faded with a look of helplessness. Uncle Dudly passed over the letter to me; it was scented with cologne.

  “If it reads like it smells,” sniffed Smiley, “I reckon we got the goods sure.”

  Here’s the letter:

  Old Man Blue, Etc.

  Kind Sir & Friend:

  I am a lady in stratened circumstance in whom your advertisement hits a responsive cord. If this party is halter-broke and warranted kind I’ve a trustful heart that will appeal. Besides, I need the money. Can come by first train. Confidingly,

  Cactus-Blossom,

  P.O. Box 1509, Phoenix.

  “That got the proper sound,” said Uncle Dudly. “Spelling O.K., George?”


  “Fair enough.”

  “I’s dotted and t’s crossed?”

  “They are.”

  “Stops, semistops, and other dewdabs dropped in proper?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Whoop! Any woman who can spell and hold her breath long enough for an occasional period must be a whole team in domestic economy. Let’s size up the writing.”

  I handed over the letter.

  “Graceful, that’s a cinch. Gents, we couldn’t find anything to beat this. ‘Cactus-Blossom,’ eh? A strong hand and the poetic instinct ought to do Fergy a world of good. Write her muy pronto, George—say we’ll be here to meet her. Hey, Fergy! You’re a lucky dog!”

  “I wisht I knew!” gulped the bonanza, listening at the door.

  “We know, which is plenty. Build a bonfire with the rest of these, George—hold! Build the bonfire to welcome the lady when she comes. And, now, Grouchy, on to the palace! We’ll take a couple to the future Mrs. Fergy!”

  So I wrote the letter. The town drew a long breath and held it for three days; then came the answer, and everybody was happy with the exception of Fergy. Cactus-Blossom would come. We could expect her on the Thursday stage. And would the “party in question” please wear a red rose in his buttonhole so he might be at once apprehended?

  Naturally, there wasn’t a red rose within a thousand miles of us; but Dutch Charley jumped into the breach. With a piece of wire and some red tissue-paper from a festoon in the palace he fashioned a scarlet wad that looked enough like a rose not to be mistaken for much of anything else.

  A hiatus of harrowing hours chinked in between the second letter and Thursday. Hot Sulphur went back and forth and in and out, staggering under a load of suspense, while the bureau packed up for Chicago.

  There was a J. P. at Ace High, and it was quite fitting, said Uncle Dudly, that the knot, equivalent to a hangman’s knot for Ace High, should there be tied; so Stumpy Smith was to be on hand with a team to take the happy couple and the bureau over the hills.

  By Thursday morning the groom had wilted perceptibly; when he moved he tottered, and when he looked at you it was with a hunted and apprehensive glare in his faded eyes. Pegleg and Charley were appointed best men in order to make sure the groom stayed in town.

  The stage was due at 2 P.M. All the bunting in town had been flung to the breeze. Pinochle Pete’s artistic taste had run riot all over the front of the Palace in new red paint.

  Alfalfa Smith had erected a triumphal arch of greasewood at the edge of the platform, with the bride’s name worked on top in calico letters. Uncle Dudly had dug up some old sticks of dynamite and sunk them in the empty sulphur hole back a piece from the Bazaar, with a long fuse attached.

  “Best bib and tucker” was the order, and save for Wun Choo every citizen’s hair was parted in the middle. For a stranded outfit we did pretty well, too. You’d have known Fergy for the bridegroom a mile off, between the bunch of red paper in his coat and the best men’s forty-fives handy.

  Golightly looked better than for weeks past. Originally he had come to the spring to help his rheumatism; and a few immersions did him so much good that Uncle Dudly got his funds for the hotel. The receding waters had left Golightly neither physical nor financial ability to join the exodus, and Wilson, his attendant, had also stayed, mostly on faith.

  Hot Sulphur meandered over a flat in Hatch-a-kew Gulch. A mile to the north the Happenchance trail struck the rim of the gulch and from there lumped right down into the flat. Uncle Dudly kept his binoculars trained north along the rim and sighted a sail at two sharp.

  “There she blows! Chuck’s in sight!”

  A wild cheer went up. Stumpy drove his wagon around and backed up to the platform; he had trimmed up the old ore-carrier real fancy with greasewood and calico. The binoculars passed from hand to hand.

  Chuck and the buckboard were only half a mile off when Pinochle Pete and Wun Choo got a look. They took a long one, then Pete said he felt thirsty and excused himself. Wun Choo merely faded into the scenery, puzzled like.

  We were too interested to notice them, and Uncle Dudly kept the glasses himself the rest of the time. As the buckboard got nearer I saw the best men slowly abandon Fergy and head south. Fergy roused himself with an effort, hovered ineffectually around, then bolted. Wilson was snaking Golightly out of sight when I jumped for the spring-house.

  I plumb forgot that Uncle Dudly had just lit the fuse to the dynamite, and the last I saw of the reception party was he standing there completely absorbed in watching the fluttering skirts on the rear seat of the buckboard.

  Alfalfa had skipped into the Bazaar, and Stumpy was rolling along toward the ranch, the others crowded into his wagon. I laid low in the spring-house, watching.

  Chuck Anthony pulled up, a grin on his salmon colored visage. Uncle Dudly looked like a man in a dream. I saw him start, stare about, and call my name; but somehow I failed to hear. Meanwhile, Cactus-Blossom had alit and was comfortably filling the triumphal arch.

  Cactus-Blossom was right. An airy creature of some two hundred pounds left the arch and tripped in Uncle Dudly’s direction, the arch rocking like a ship in a storm at each step.

  She was armed with a cotton umbrella and carried a grip of the vintage of 1860; her skirts swept her boot-tops, and as for her face—well, a casual glance through the glass at half a mile had been enough for me. Closer inspection left nothing to be desired.

  Uncle Dudly had retreated to the edge of the platform, where he stood looking as if he was going under for the third time with no straws in sight. All of a sudden I remembered that fuse and the dynamite. I started for the open, then I ducked back; being between the devil and the deep sea, I took the deep sea and slid under one of the cast-iron seats with my coat over my head. I judged the paradise ferry would be along directly.

  “Well, here I am!” rumbled a voice. Uncle Dudly cleared his throat. “Togged up a consid’able, didn’t you? Say, are you the condition that trails along in the wake of that seventy-five thousand dollars?”

  I went hot and cold, thinking of that dynamite.

  “Er—ahem, ma’m—I’m Old Man Blue—”

  “Oh, you are! What d’you mean saying you ain’t the party in the ad., then showing up with my rose?”

  I peeked out. Dutch’s American Beauty was hanging off Uncle Dudly’s coat—bravo, Fergy! I could have patted the bonanza on the back if I been several miles away.

  “What you toting the label for? Trifling with me, you off-colored specimen—”

  I heard something that sounded like an umbrella slapping a Prince Albert, but just then things happened to the dynamite. I shot square through the side of the spring-house and took most of it with me at that.

  The dynamite giving me a flying start, so to speak, I kept on down the gulch when I found my legs weren’t busted off, and two mile farther on met Golightly, blue in the face and walking north.

  I asked him about Wilson and the chair, and he said Wilson couldn’t get into his third speed and he’d forgotten about rheumatism. We stood and conferred a bit until Grouchy showed up from the bushes.

  Then we sort of skirmished back to see what had become of Uncle Dudly. On the way Alfalfa came to meet us—he came on the run, too, with half his shirt gone, and sort of discouraged us by telling how Cactus-Blossom had gone through the Bazaar.

  After an hour we went forward in light order. When we got in sight of home the buckboard was just streaking along the rim of the gulch, a fluttering of skirts in the back seat.

  To our surprise—and his own, too, I reckon—Uncle Dudly seemed safe and unharmed and was standing near the remnants of the spring-house. A black eye didn’t improve his looks, and he began capering around as if he was touched by the sun. I felt him out a bit.

  “Take it easy, uncle,” I says. “We’ll see that nothing hurts—”

  “Take it easy!” and he looked at me wild-eyed. “George Augustus, we‘re it! Let me take your hand!”

  “I jud
ge I won’t!” and I backed off a piece looking him over pretty careful. “What’s on your brain, anyhow?”

  “Water!” he yelled. “Sulphur water! The blast brought it back, boys! Hot Sulphur is made—three cheers for Old Man Blue!”

  The bunch came up with a yell, and we found Uncle Dudly had given it to us straight. That blast had filled up the empty spring-hole as nice and neat as it ever was in its best days!

  It was hard for us to realize at first, until we explored the ruins of the spring-house and actually drank some of the bubbling stuff ourselves. Then Alfalfa had an inspiration.

  “Say, boys,” he yelled, “three cheers for Cactus-Blossom!”

  The next minute he was looking into a pair of blued barrels.

  “Drop it,” says Uncle Dudly real slow and careful. “The first man that says Cactus-Blossom to me will gather roses on t’other side the divide. Maybe they won’t be regulation roses, but it’s a cinch they won’t be made out of red paper!”

  Which is mainly the reason why Hot Sulphur retained its name.

  THE BLACKOUT MURDERS, by G. Wayman Jones

  CHAPTER I

  Escape to Death

  There was a certain measure of excitement prevailing over the blackout of New York City, scheduled for ten o’clock. Everyone wanted to see how Times Square, the fashionable avenues, and the downtown cut-rate shops would look completely inked out.

  Fireworks were promised, too, for after flights of Army and Navy planes studied the blackout from the air, three big reconnaissance bombers were to streak across the city, drop flares that would create millions of candle power and photograph the area with cameras synchronized with the explosion of the flares.

  Every police officer was on duty and under orders to keep a watchful eye for crime which might spring up during the half hour of pitch darkness. Radio cars, with taped headlamps and special blue bulbs would criss-cross the main arteries and side streets and, for those thirty minutes, be the only moving traffic on the streets.