XUjMBtRING GQLD
'Ssyd^' 1 —
SECOND INSTALLMENT
SYNOPSIS: Strange friends they
were—yound Ed Maltland, whose,
fathers had followed" the sea from
New England, but who had started
north to make his fortune when the
first news of the, gold find in
'97 found him stranded op the Pa
cific coast; and Speed Malone, who
told little enough of his past but
admitted to. a knowledge of all the
gold camps. With ten dollars —half
of Maitland's total wealth —Speed
gets into a game of Solo, and seems
to be winning.
Maitland knew nothing of the
game but was fascinated by the
movement of his companion's hands
while dealing. The fingers that
moved so supplely over the keys of
an accordion, seemed to lure music
of another kind from the smooth
cards, as he riffled and snapped
them into place and shot them out
with clean precision, dropping the
last of the round and the three cards
of the widow almost in one gesture.
He won the next bid with a heart
solo. This time his opponents did
not conceal their conviction that the
game was unsound. But before
they had recovered from that cer
tainty, he had made his point by a
shrewd handling of low cards. The
sweet singers took a firmer grip
on their cigars and settled into the
game.
Stakes began to climb. Frog bids
vanished. Onlookers edged in from
other groups to watch the play—
among them a burly red-faced man
who stood obscurely at the rim of
the circle with his eyes fixed intent
ly on Speed's face and hands. The
gambler remained calm and com
posed as a deacon, playing good
hands and bad with equal devout
ness or rather making bad ones
good, for the cards were running
hard against him.
"Wouldn't surprise me a whole
lot to hear you'd played this game
afore," the man declared as he lit
a cigar before picking up a new
hand.
Speed was busy arranging his
cards and did not answer. When
he raised his eyes it was in a pre
occupied way in Maitland's direction,
but they rested instead on someone
else in the crowd. One of his eye
lids flickered slightly, as if to evade
a wreath of cigarette smoke. Prom
the gold he had collected, he trans
ferred two handfuls to his pockets.
The remainder of the pile he
pushed out to center.
"This stack says I don't take a
trick," he observed. "I'm goin'
'misere."
Had Maitland been watching
closely, he would have noticed a
slight shifting on the part of the
red-faced man among the specta
tors. He might have remembered
that skill in this game was one of
the few identifying traits of the ban
dit, Buck Solo—if he had not be
lieved the bandit to be a captive in
the Okanagans. He might have
noticed, too, that in a lazy upward
glance that seemed to take cogniz
ance of nothing, this fact had been
caught and registered by the man
under observation. But no one's
attention is sharpened by watching
a game he does not understand, and
Maitland's interest had begun to
stray. He elbowed his way out of
the circle to ramble over the ship.
Most of the passengers having
chosen a position amidship, he
found that the crowd thinned as he
went forward of the main cabin. At
the forward rail a lookout stood
alone, peering into the blanket of
mist ahead. They were now in the
outer waters of the Sound: the traf
fic had dwindled and the hooting of
sirens was muffled in far distance.
"How does she lie?" he asked the
lookout.
"Off Port Townsend," the man
said, without turning.
The boy stood by the rail awhile,
eyeing the dim froth of water be
low, and that gray essence of things
unseen and unforseen through
which the steamer was cleaving her
blinded course.
He was not conscious of a con
tradiction in his advice to the West
erner about gambling, though it ran
deeper than his mere presence on
the George E. Starr. Men of his
name and blood had raced for car
goes in the days of the clipper ships,
and Liter plunged the winnings into
deep-bottomed carriers — to Jose
them finally in wilder games of
chance with the sea. His father had
gone down in a storm with two
of their ships. This tragedy had
caused his mother's death when he
was born. The remnant of the
original stakes left in play had been
involved by a defect in the under
writing of the lost cargoes.
His earliest memory was of a
small schooner which his grand
father had managed to salvage out
of the general wreck. Prom the old
man he had learned, along with a
knowledge of ships and water.
After his grandfather's death, he
had found employment with a firm
of underwriters' agents, reporting
on wrecks and salvage It had led
him into the study of admiralty
law—a vocation his sea-going fath
ers would not have admired.
He was sent west to investigate a
wreck off the Farrallones, near
San Francisco —-his first important
commission. But he had found the
owners in a position rather like that
of his own people when they
crashed. His sympathy arid the
rights Of the base" were with the
strarided adventurers as against the
bankers. He had wired a report
as fair to both sides as he could
make it.
The return wire had virtually ac
cused him of being bought by the
owners, in a gust of anger he had
resigned, though the whole struc
ture of his plans went foundering on
that reef. He was unwilling to re
turn home till he had regained his
footing, but his carreer was not an
easy wreck to salvage.
Jobless, and witji his small capi
tal dwindling, he had been roving
the wharves of that misty western
port of adventure when the news of
the gold strike on Bonanza Creek
burst on the world like a rocket—
promising him a means of recover
ing more than he had lost.
"If you wasn't a gambler, Bud
. . ." Something the Westerner had
said recurred to him now. He had
been careful in buying his outfit,
weighing the value of every pur
chase against his resources. His
having drawn a passage on this
derelict side-wheeler was a queer
mischance, but he believed the old
tub was a little stauncher than she
looked. Whether it was a wild
gamble depended rather, he thought
on himself.
The pistol shot that cut the
thread of his revery came from the
region of the ship where he had
left his pack. As he turned, he ob
tained a sheer view of the ship's
side, and saw, sharply outlined in
the fog, the figure of a burly, red
faced man who was peering over
the rail with a smoking revolver in
his hand.
Someone touched his elbow.
"Man shot your pardner," a voice
said. "He's overboard."
He picked up the words on the
wing and shredded them for sense.
A handful of cards held by one of
the watchers at the rail gave him
the inkling of an answer. A gamb
ler's quarrel—quick fingers . not
quick enough—a shot, a rush . . . ?
He had often seen men take that
plunge for much less, but this
man—?
Heads were craned back toward
the blank space the ship was leav
ing. "Wounded? Probably not much
of a swimmer, if he came from in
land. The boaLs would be slow . .
Maitland's leap from the rail was
so swift that the engines were not
reversed for a minute after he dived.
When he came to the surface, hard
ly knowing in that gray murk
whether he was breathing fog or
sea, the steamer was out of sight.
Unable to see through the blur
of spray and fog he paused to listen
for a cry. Relaxing was an effort;
the cold brine had teeth of fire.
Soon he caught a splashing sound
not far ahead. Swiftly as he went,
the sound receded. He stopped
again. Hearing a sound once more,
he shouted.
There was no answer, and he
kept on, losing count of the space
he was putting between himself
and the steamer. The gambler, if
the sound he heard was his swim
ming, might either be trying to
make his way ashore, or might have
lost his bearings in the fog. It
seemed more probable that he had
drowned.
He halted to tread the water in
the icy swell and shouted. The cry
rasped in his throat. This time he
seemed to hear an answer, but in
the same instant his body was
pierced by a searing stab. The mus
cles of his back twisted in a paraly
zing knot that stopped his breath.
Though the cramp was unbreakable!
he fought it with every reserve of
will, as it dragged him down, impo
tent, into shadowed, swirling freez
ing depths. His lungs heaved; drums
roared in his ears; his heart seemed
to wedge in his throat.
Shadows dissolved around him
into misty daylight. Something was
supporting him, choked and numb,
on the summit of a swaying world
of waters, and he heard a voice say
ing between breaths:
"Well, I'll be doggoned. So it's
you . . . you onery young son of a
sea dog. Last dive most got me .
winded . . . Reckoned you was the
deputy."
Even the sight of the gambler's
dripping face failed to make this
clear.
Don't figure I could swim ye
ashore," the voice continued. "And
I'm locoed if I call that boat." Yet
this was exactly what Maitland
heard him do a few moments later,
but there was no answer.
Maitland knew too well the dis
advantage of a buoy as a refuge for
drowning men in a fog. Passing
ships give it as wide a berth as pos
sible. With this thought he real
ized the full irony of what had hap
pened. His attempted rescue was
worse than useless; he was actually
dragging down the man he had
tried to save. That final detail
struck him as unfair.
He tried to wrench himself free.
But though the gambler's hold wav-
THE ELKIN TRIBUNE, ELKIN, NORTH CAROLINA
ered, he could not loosen it. When
fie struggled to speak the arm only
gripped him tighter. Then eveify
thing was' drenched in a fantastic
ether,, through which floated ima
ges of boyhood things iong forgot
tenj and he sank lnto a billowing
haze of darkness.
He. wps recalled to semi-con
sciousness for the last r time by what
sounded like a. cry . from the other;
then '■ he heard waves slapping
against the hollow prow of a small
boat, and the familiar creak and
thump of oarlocks.
When he opened his eyes, the
gambler was sitting at a table with
a steaming cup in one hand and a
cigarette in the other, watching
him. He found himself swathed in
blankets in a dim enclosure. The
floor rolled slightly and at first he
did not know whether he was dizzy
or at sea.
Before he had time to observe
rr, PROGRAM—©
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WARREN WILLIAMS MONDAY AND TUESDAY
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Also Added Screen Attraction "THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER".
"La Curararlia" April 1-2
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A Melody Drama of Dazzling Splendor in
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CARTOON SERIAL WILL ROGERS ,n ,
I ADMISSION 10c-30c "COUNTY CHAIRMAN"
more, the gambler was handing him
a cupful of hot wine with the cheer
ful suggestion,
"Hoist yourself round this."
The drink helped clear his head.
"Where's the steamer?" He asked.
"Hell and gone by now," said
I Speed, watching the boy's face
darken and then light again with
an illusory hope.
Maitland stretched himself pain
fully.. "Whose boat is this?"
"Some frog fisherman from Se
attle, was .headin'* for the halibut
banks when the fog stopped him.
He pulled in close to the buoy to
be clear of the shippin' track. Now
he says he'll take us ashore when
he gets a wind. DOn't reckon he'll
get one for a piece, but it Won't
hurt ye none to thaw a while."
A dark wavering in a shaft of
light that fell into the cabin from
the cockpit caused him to look up.
Through the aperture two heavy
sea boots came into view, followed
by a pair of corduroy trousers, a
blue, close-fitting Jersey with
shrunken sleeves and a plump and
swarthy face, bluish around the
chin where the beard was shaven
and topped with a black cap with a
shining visor.
"How does she blow, Boss?" usked
Speed, as the man entered.
"Ze win' he draw ver' alow. I tek
you ashore, feefteen dollar. Non?"
"No," was the gafhbler's dry com
ment. "With the price of , wind
goln' up this way I reckon we'll
stay where we set."
The fisherman sprayed his hands.
"C'est la blague, quoi? I mek ze
freeshen' one, two, zree day. B'en,"
he added in a quieter tone. "I tek
you back to Seattle, feefty dollar."
"Go on, you horse thief," Speed
answered good-humoredly. "You've
got chuck enough in this wagon to
ride us to. the fishbanks and back,
IPS., . Successful aid in
PREVENTING Colds
I At the first nasal irritation or sniffle,
apply Vicks Va-tro-nol—just a few drops.
* ojifipK * Used in time, it helps to avoid many
I colds entirely. (Two sizes: 3Of*, 50^.)
Thursday, March 14, 1935
and it wouldn't cost you five dol
lars. How-ver, we ain't goin' to
Seattle, or fishin' neither."
Continued Next Week
Various species of rhinoceros were
abundant in North America, millions
of years ago.
R. E. FA W, Jr.
. Drilled Wells
Any size or depth for all purposes
North Wilkesboro, N. C.