Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1916 - Feb 1917)

The Quitter 53 "I am." She nodded brightly. "Glad? I haven't been so glad since — since Bill, sit down here on the porch and let me tell you something about myself. It was a dreadful thing to answer that advertisement ; but you boys have been so perfectly good to me that I almost feel I did the right thing." "You sure did. It was Providence. That's what it was." "Yes, Bill, but if we put the nice things up to Providence, how about the unnice things?" Bill had no answer, and she went on : "I saw Happy Jack's advertisement in a Gold City paper. Saw it just at the time when things looked their blackest. My father was a miner, like the boys here, but I'm afraid an unsuccessful one. He died, leaving me a claim that nobody would buy, and I had to shift for myself. My mother died long ago. Mr. Willet, of the firm of Willet & Condon, employed me as bookkeeper " "Mmin' promoters — I know 'em. Slick birds I'd call 'em/' interrupted Big Bill. "Well, it looked like a nice position for me at first, but — but Mr. Willet's attentions became obnoxious. That's the mildest way to put it, Bill." "The skunk"! I'll go down an' fill him full uh lead." "No, no, no !" pleaded Glad, and she laid her hand on his arm. "Let sleeping dogs lie. Everything is all right now — that is, everything except Happy Jack. Tell me about him." Big Bill fidgeted. "Sorry to say, Glad, we didn't give that young feller a square deal," he blurted out. "First off, Ben fills him up with stories of eagle-faced fee-males of uncertain age who answer ads like ours and send fake photographs; and Happy was plumb feared you'd turn out to be a fright." "But— but I'm not a fright, Bill?" She looked up at him, a question in her smiling eyes. "Lordy ! No ! You're the purtiest little Say, Glad, don't get me gohV as to your good looks." "But, Bill, why doesn't somebody tell Happy Jack that I'm — that I won't scare him?" "Well, fact is, we've sorter lost track uh .Happy, an' there ain't none of us dead anxious to bring him back, for, you see, he's got fust choice, so to speak. You understand, Glad ?" She blushed. "I understand, Bill. Well, if you see him I wish you'd tell him I'd like to thank him for being so good to me." Skookum George could have told more about Happy Jack, but Skookum was not telling anybody. After that knock-out blow, with the assistance of a Mexican pal, he had bundled Jack into a southbound train and returned cheerfully to the Gulch with the others. Some days later, Ben got a wire frorrr Jack apprising him of the fact that he had recovered consciousness on the train and had climbed out at the fastidiously perfect village of Braithwaite. There he had been promptly arrested as a suspicious character and flung into jail. He begged Ben to identify him by wire. Skookum George happened to be in the bar when Jack's message was received, and Ben handed it to him for advice and counsel. "Good place for Happy," commented Skookum. "He's fond uh practical jokes. We'll make this a good one, pard. I'll wire the warden uh this here jail that Happy's a crook and a counterfeiter. 'S what I call some joke on Happy, eh?" To languish in jail was not Happy Jack's, idea of a joke. He waited for a day or two following his message to Ben, but no reply forthcoming, he determined to make his own escape. It was not difficult. A vigorous pressure on the bars, maintained at intervals in