Pulp Fiction, 1955 · page 39 of 101
15 Western Short Stories — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Content Analysis This is a story page from a pulp fiction magazine featuring "It Was a Lass-Rope" by Archie Joscelyn. The page contains narrative prose with one illustration showing a covered wagon train on a desert trail. The story describes a cowboy on horseback encountering a wagon train carrying a pretty girl and a child. The text suggests tension as the cowboy's lasso spooks a rabbit, which startles the oxen pulling the wagon, forcing the cowboy to intervene—though the narrative hints he expected to rescue only the child, not the girl.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IT WAS A OONE’S intention, when he B saw the long dust of the wagon train, was merely to ride across for a brief Howdy, and maybe a glimpse of a pretty girl. It had been so long since he’d seen one he could scarcely remember that all women didn’t wear blankets. LASS - ROPE ARCHIE PY JOSCELYN and bright-eyed. She glanced upward just then and saw him, sitting easy in the saddle, and her eyes rounded while red lips formed an O. The sun had tangled in her hair, giving it a cobwebby look to snare a man’s heart easy as his loop would snag the foot of a running steer. Beside her played a child who could be either sister or daughter. A ragzedly bearded man plodded beside the oxen on the off side and snapped his long whip ab- sently. A rabbit crouched, trembling, beneath the eee of a SY) Mig ae ae ie “acted out of habit. eee ee With the riata al- — = 3 "A “ready a-twirl in his hand A tall man with an easy grin, clad in a Shirt red as a fair-weather sun- set, he topped the hill and the wag- ons were spread below, passing in a long string. His restless hands toyed with his lass-rope as he swung closer, noting the weathered canvas of a long trail, hearing the wheels creak in tem- po to the dull snort of plodding oxen. His glance brightened. Right be- low, a wagon was passing, the canvas tied back front and rear to let the air temper the sun, It revealed a girl, seated in the rear of the box who was everything he’d hoped to see, pretty 39 it was easy. But he'd only ex- pected to rescue a child. ... clump of sage, black mule ears folded close to its back. The crack of the whip sent it spinning out in a wild leap, almost under the noses of the plodding team. Like the rabbit, they were transformed instantly; that was the way with oxen when they took a notion. The near one, an ornery- looking steer with a loppy horn, let out a bawl, the sound squeezing past his tongue as if he’d been under the branding iron. He humped to a run, comiicbooeoe S CO