Cole of Spyglass Mountain

by Arthur Preston Hankins

He had money left. He remembered what it would be necessary for him to buy in the way of materials for the building of his proposed telescope. So in order to forestall another trip to Los Angeles, he bought a seventy-inch piece of brass tubing, a small plano-convex lens about an inch in diameter, a few smaller pieces of tubing, a hand magnifying glass, and an ordinary camera tripod. And now there remained only five dollars and some odd cents of the money that both he and California Bill had saved from their first payday with Demarest, Spruce and Tillou. However, he had his return ticket to Spur and enough for stage fare back to Ragtown, but he could not buy a meal. Oh, well—hunger was no new thing to him. He could eat when he reached camp again, to-morrow night! He would be a poor servant of Science if he could not sacrifice four meals in her cause.

Shortly before dark the following evening the stage topped the summit of the mountains and rattled down the steep grade toward Stirrup Lake. Joshua still had four miles to walk after reaching Ragtown, and he wondered if he could persuade one of the cooks or flunkies to give him a hand-out. The stage reached the level of the lake and made speed around the eastern end toward Ragtown, whose lights blinked out with subtle invitation.

Ragtown was such a mushroom growth as springs up in wilderness localities wherever big construction is taking place. Like Wild Woman Springs, it was composed of new pine-shacks and tents. There is always a “rag town” close to a big railroad-building job, so called because of its tents, but this one had not chosen a name to distinguish it, so it was Ragtown to the thousands of laborers traveling up and down the line. It was a riotous place, of course, the scene of many drunken brawls and wild nights of carousal, but it was typical of the pioneering West, sinful but picturesquely sinful.

The tent saloons and dance halls were filled to overflowing as the stage wheeled to a stop before The Silver Dollar, in which was the store and post office, hypocritically partitioned off with thin boards from the bar and dance hall, with a convenient archway between. A hundred men, perhaps, were in the one street that extended through the town, and a dozen saddle horses were tied to a hitching rack, proving that the Box-R cowpunchers were making the most of this spark of civilization that had flared up over night.

Joshua climbed out of the stage, his heavy bundle under his arm. He had no money to buy food or entertainment at Ragtown, so without a look to right or left he started up the street, which was no more than an inhabited portion of the long road from Spur to the railroad grade. He saw a knot of men standing in front of The Golden Eagle, a saloon, restaurant, gambling den, and dance hall, next door to The Silver Dollar, and as he passed them he glanced at the object that held their interest. Just then a spectator swung away from the group, and Joshua saw a man seated on the beaten ground beside the road—there was no sidewalk—and before him a black cloth was spread, on which two skeletons five inches high danced weirdly.

It was the old game of The Whimperer, but Joshua was surprised to see anybody trying it here. He stepped closer and through the half-light looked at the operator’s face. The black hat was pulled down over the man’s eyes, but there was no mistaking the evil-looking scar that glared out from its surrounding patch of stubby beard.

The master of the skeleton dance was Joshua’s jocker, the man who had robbed him of his dearest treasure, The Whimperer.

For a little Joshua saw red, as thoughts came to him of all the misery that this tramp’s treachery had brought upon him. Next instant he had dropped his bundle and was elbowing men aside as he marched to the squatting panhandler.

“Well, Whimp,” he said in tones that trembled slightly, “where’s my telescope?”

The skeletons ceased their dance and toppled over. For two tense seconds the old John Yegg stared up at Joshua, his ugly mouth open. Then he made the quickest move that Joshua had ever seen him make, for with a squirming jump he had flipped himself to his feet and was fleeing down the street.