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Show Water Dollars By PAUL STAYTON (McClure Syndicate WNU Service.) SPIC ALVORD aimed a plump finger fin-ger at the contraption of wheels, fans and tube coils on the platform attached to his gaudy trailer. Turning Turn-ing to the wisp of an old man beside be-side him in the hot, dusty alley of Sundog, he urged: "Just the thing for your dry claim. Watch!" He touched a button. A tiny motor, mo-tor, prestone-cooled always a go"d sales point began to purr. Wheels flashed. Fans cut air. A two-inch pipe coughed and was spurting water. wa-ter. Old Hank Barth hitched his battered bat-tered canteen higher on one thin shoulder. Baby-blue eyes stared incredulously in-credulously at the jet. "Where's it all comin' from?" he marveled. Spic restrained a chuckle. His guarded inquiries about the dumbness dumb-ness of the prosperous old prospector prospec-tor had not been time wasted. "Air contains moisture," Spic orated. "These fans draw air into those coils, where electrical currents," cur-rents," he lied glibly, "condense its moisture into a gushing stream, pure and cold." He stopped the machinery, and the jet died. No use draining the tank cleverly concealed in the trailer. trail-er. Barth smiled like a child meeting meet-ing Santa. "If I had that much water wa-ter steady for my sluice boxes " "Only two grand," Spic encouraged. encour-aged. Barth patted a bulging vest pocket. pock-et. "Ain't the money worries me. It's temperature " "Temperature?" Spic asked, puzzled. puz-zled. "Yep. It's hot here, but this is nothin' to out at my diggin's. Fiery Desert is like a candle. Air so siz-zlin' siz-zlin' mightn't have enough water to make this proposition work at all." "All air contains moisture," Spic argued. "Not on old Fiery." "How far?" "Forty mile." Barth glanced aside. "Just give me time to load up my truck with supplies. Stuck it out waitin' for rain till I drank my last tin of tomatoes. Spic hustled him towards the luxurious lux-urious sedan that drew the trailer. Take no chance on a sucker talking and being tipped off. "Can't wait. Bring you back afterwards for your truck," he promised. Before entering, Barth examined his canteen; without water one can live only a few days on a blistering desert. Spic slid behind the wheel seat between them. The gauge showed enough gas to make the forty-mile trip there and back nicely, nice-ly, he judged. Soon to the hum of an air-cooled motor, the desert was opening. Choi-la Choi-la cacti and sun-seared ridges streamed past the windows of the speeding car. Presently the road grew bad. Second gear was often necessary. Spic gulped time and again from his canteen. Barth sipped occasionally at his. "How much farther?" Spic questioned when they had gone forty-six miles. "Just a piece." "You said forty." "Forty as the crow flies," Barth hedged. "By this corkscrew road it's farther. How's gas?" Spic looked down, startled. Second-gear driving had drawn heavily on the tank. It was almost empty. Barth sighed. "Drive on. I'll foot it back to town and bring some out on my truck. There's one spring on the way I can strike for water. Take me four-five days." He smiled pityingly at Spic's soft bulk. "You'll hafta stay at the shack. You never could hoof it to town." The starved motor was coughing when Spic stopped before a rough board cabin overlooking a row of sluice boxes in a dry yellow gulch. Despite the furnace blast of a late afternoon sun he smiled confidently as he got out and led the old prospector pros-pector behind the trailer. His touch awoke the water machine. Wheels, fans, pistons, flashed into action. Water gushed. Barth grinned to his ears. "It's got even the air of old Fiery licked," he cackled. Together they lifted and lugged the heavy but worthless contraption into the shadow of the cabin and set it down. "Stay here and don't get lost," Barth advised. "The sooner I start the sooner I'll get back with gas." He turned abruptly and struck off into the desert, across lengthening rock shadows. Spic watched him out of sight, then entered the hot little shack. On a shelf he saw bacon, ba-con, beans, flour. Sight of the dry food made him thirsty. Spic raised his now light canteen to his lips, drained it in two quick gulps, then lumbered across the room to a barrel above which a tin dipper hung. The barrel was empty. Suddenly he remembered what Barth had said about drinking his last tin of tomatoes. Hands trembling, trem-bling, he began to search. There was no water in the cabin, nor any substitute. Three days later a weary figure dropped flat beside a desert spring, thrust its face into the water and drank thirstily. One more day tr Sundog. Though life-giving, the water was hot and bad. Hank Barth sighed. The fine cold drinks Spic was enjoying en-joying whenever he turned on that water machine! |