10-Story Detective, September 1941 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKJACKS you that in confidence. Why are you telling it here, telling the dam’s enemies how to wreck the works?” Falkner’s voice was savage. “I’m just protecting myself, Hughes. I’m showing that if I were really trying to stop the work, I could have stopped it without killing Durey.” Hughes was raging. “I don’t like you, Falkner. I think that you’re a double-dealing rat. You’ve betrayed a trust, a dead man’s trust. We’re in the wrong place, Cobb. Come on, let’s get out and let them hang him.” Lawrence Cobb hesitated. “Guy, you shouldn’t have done that.” Falkner flared. “I’m tired of taking raps, tired of getting pushed around. If you don’t like what I did, get out.” Cobb hesitated a moment longer, then with a shrug he followed Hughes from the room. McCosky laughed, and there was a twisting anger in the sound. “You’ve fixed yourself now, sonny boy. You’ve double-crossed so many people that you don’t know who is on your side and who isn’t. Let me take him downstairs, chief. I’ll have a confession in ten minutes.” Greham’s face was tight. “We'll get it up here, Mac, and it won’t take ten minutes—” He broke off as a red- faced sergeant hurried into the room. “Hey, chief, the street is full of those roughnecks from the dam. They gay that if we don’t turn Falkner loose they’ll tear this building down and then wreck the rest of the town.” Greham swore. “Get the riot guns and the tear gas. We'll show them how we treat a mob.” “Too late.” Scotty had come in through the door behind the sergeant. He still wore no shoes, but he towered above every man in the room. Behind him were a dozen tunnel workers, still wearing their crash helmets and looking for all the world like soldiers. Falkner laughed and started to get. to his feet. One of the plain-clothes men moved forward to stop him, only to be grabbed by a couple of tunnel workers. “Sit down, boy scout.” 21 The plain-clothes man sat down hurriedly, Burton came up to his feet. His face was white with rage. ‘Do you men realize what you’re doing? Do you realize that you can all go to prison?’”’? Someone shoved him back into his seat. The men were disarming the police. Falkner walked out in the lead to find the street filled with men from the dam. They made quite a parade march- ing down First, singing. The people of Sheldon gathered on the sidewalks to watch, and there were quite a few cheers. It was obvious that not every- one in town agreed with the Chamber of Commerce. Falkner was walking beside Scot- ty. “You shouldn’t have showed up there,” he told the ex-lumberjack. “It’s okay for most of these boys. They’re on the job across the can- yon, and they can’t touch them, but you’re in business in this town.” The tall man grinned. “I was,’ he said. “But I been getting ready to re- tire and I figured this was as good a time as any.” Falkner didn’t say anything. He’d just got out of a tough spot and no one knew it better than he. But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. After all, bad as he was, Chief Greham still represented the law in Sheldon and the state wasn’t going to overlook this action. It couldn’t. Scotty said: “We'd better get out of town as soon as we can.” He was evidently thinking the same thing. “They ain’t going to forget this in a hurry. The place will be lousy with militia in the morning. Come on, let’s ride.” CHAPTER V HE sun had been down behind the distant peaks for better than two hours when Falkner came out of the field office. Below them, the strings of lights brightened the can- yon as the workers drove on. Durey’s men were carrying forward as if their boss were still alive. Ccomiclook (©