10 Short Novels Magazine — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

“Got a lot of miles in ’im yet,” he con- cluded. He pulled up, listened, far ahead he heard the distant rumble of hooves. Care- fully he rode on. Rougher and rougher became the terrain. Sagebrush thinned. The knotted little pifions grew scattering and even more scrawny. Conical buttes of grayish clay grew fewer, giving way almost entirely to stone. The sun, sinking nearer the hori- zon, sprayed colors in the rock forma- tion with softened glare. It was an awe- some waste into which he was riding, a - yegion of scenic grandeur. But Ruff was blind and dead to everything but the clamor of hoofbeats he kept always before im. “How much further can they be goin’ ?” he muttered uneasily. Half an hour later he got the answer. They entered a canyon and the noise ahead died suddenly. Dismounting, Ruff led the weary. buck- skin into a side gulch, left the horse there. Afoot, he went ahead. He inspected old Stan Yonkel’s six- gun. Yonkel had carried the hammer on an empty chamber, a common precaution with these single-action guns. It held five cartridges. And Ruff had no more am- munition. He scowled. His quarry numbered six! Abruptly he veered left, crept up to- ward the.canyon rimrock. He had heard voices ahead. OON after, Ruff sighted the gang. Leading the girl, they wheeled into a sheer-walled, narrower cut.. Two men remained on guard there. Ruff scouted, discovered two more men on watch with the horses. He eyed the rimrock above his head, saw he was go- ing to have trouble climbing it, and looked once more at the canyon into which the girl had been taken. No chance of pass- ing the guards. He went back to his buckskin and got the lass rope. With that he managed to surmount the wall-like rimrock. Creep- ing forward, he peered into the side can- yon. There was a shack below him, evident- ly erected by some prospector in the past. The structure stood on a shelf erosion had left above the canyon bed. Fantastic stone - formation like huge spikes studded the slope from the shack to the canyon rim- rock. And the rimrock itself was rent by a wash like a knife slash. “Perfect!” Ruff breathed. He could creep, unobserved, to the very door of the shack! He listened until he heard voices in the ramshackle structure. The words were -. - SS G ms hs . he o55-* ry —— ae : = a -_ 7 = —s, scended as silently as possible. “unintelligible from that distance. He de- When he was fifty feet from the shack he could understand what was being said. “I’m tellin’ you!” Silky Ed Crowder’s voice rasped out. “We’re gonna scrag the girl if you don’t tell us where this Devil’s_ | Ear is!” “You coyote!” The reply was high, squeaky, wrathful. “You’ll sure decorate a rope for what you’re doin’!” Ruff advanced a couple of yards. He recognized that voice—his grandfather, old Zeke McCann. It had been ten years since he had seen the fire-eating old gen- tleman, but that high-pitched tone was unmistakable. : “So that’s why they grabbed the girl!” he told himself. “They couldn’t torture old Zeke into talkin’, so they’re usin’ the girl to make ’im tell’em what they want!” Two ugly thudding sounds came from the shack. The girl gave a stifled gasp of pain, evidence she was being beaten. Ruff gripped his gun, tensed for a reck- less charge. Then he crouched back. A man had appeared down the canyon, running toward the shack. “If this Devil’s Ear ain’t gold or silver, what is it?” Silky Ed Crowder roared. Before he got an answer, the running man reached the shack door. “Hey, Silky!” he barked. “I went down the eanyon a piece to keep a lookout like - you ordered, an’ I heard a bronc blowin’! It’s the buekskin that dang runt was rid- in’ hae Silky Ed Crowder popped out of the shack door. ““Where’s the brone at?” “ft brought ’im up with the other. hosses,” said the man. “You reckon—” “T thought the runt got blowed up in the house!” snarled Crowder. “C’mon! Let’s look that brone over!” They ran down the canyon. The instant they were out of sight Ruff leaped for the shack door. CHAPTER V TRICK KILL ‘ ; BOXED-Y rider stepped out of the: shack, almost crashing into Ruff. He squawled in fright, pawed for his guns. | Ruff bashed the man in the face with Stan Yonkel’s heavy six, knocking the fellow backward into the decrepit struc- ture. The gunslick’s spurs hooked the threshold and he crashed down. Sailing } into the air, Ruff descended on the man’s © stomach. He swooped, got his victim’s guns, gave fellow’s head two sleep-inducing ows. COME DOOKS t i '