Life — August 13, 1925 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

the horse to himself; but he made no answer and only looked as though he wanted a drink. “I reckon this here’s the last drap o’ water as we got, pal,” sighed the rider, shaking his canteen dismally. “I'll toss you for it,” decided the horse; then suddenly lifting his hind legs he suited the action to the word, and the stranger knew no more, except about horses. Cuapter THRee a HUT tarnation devvil’s mockery is this?” As the slim form of the girl bent over the fallen stranger, he opened his eyes and stared about him. “Whom are you?” he muttered in a quaint Eastern vernacular. “Wal, ye kin call me Maud Frothing- hampshire, fer that’s me handle,” she re- plied. “My pappy left me ‘Ye Olde Lav- ender Kettle Ranch’ when he died, and I calkerlate I've tried ter run it as he would o wished. Will you be my foreman, Mr, ——? “I am simply. “My God! So am I!” she said, and held out a hand as hard as horn. “Then it's a bargain?” “Agreed, pardner,” said Dick Halliday. “They steal from me because I am a defenseless woman,” she sobbed. “They stole fifty head last night, the ——s. Protect me,” she pleaded; and so saying she lifted the stranger in her arms and bore him back to camp. Larabee,” said the stranger Cuarter Four OWN the road trotted fifty head of cattle named Lara- bee; and at their head rode the masked bandit, bearing the limp form of Prairie Rose. You have found the missing cattle!” cried Maud Frothinghampshire. “They had wandered into the adjoining story,” said the mysterious rider. “You see, ma’am, in these here Western magazines the boundaries between yarns ain't allus so clear, and one page-is likely to lead right into another. You got to read kind o° keerful, like, or you'll lose track entirely.” And all were touched by this homely philosophy of the news-stand fiction. “Larabee,” cried the girl, “who are you?” “I'm a-goin’ fer tew kiss yew, gal!” he laughed hoarsely! Slowly the masked rider lowered the bandanna handker- chief across his face, and there stood revealed—Larabee! “I am a Mr. J. F. Simpson of New Brunswick,” he replied, “an’ this here——” and he pointed to the prostrate form of the dancer in his arms—“this is my daughter. An’ you, ma’am?” “I am Prairie Rose,” she said simply. Cuarter Five LOWLY the sun sank behind Tarnation Ridge, and the distant hills were the color of burnished metal—of gold! Across the sagebrush the shadows lengthened, as into the twilight rode the man named Larabee. + “I must be gittin’ on,” he sighed. “I'm the quaint char- acter who wanders in an’ out o’ all these here Western yarns, and I reckon I'm needed in the next chapter....” Night fell over the prairie, while a girl and a man clasped each other in close embrace, facing the West. “Before God,” they said, “there goes a man.” And darkness hid two souls that beat as one, probably named Larabee. Daughter Goose ‘EN little Commandments spoiling lots of fun— Along came the Younger Generation, and then there were none. comicbooks.com