Pulp Fiction, 1955 · page 55 of 101
15 Western Short Stories — page 55: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "His Blood in It" by L.V. Pidgeon This is a story opening page from a pulp magazine, featuring prose text with an accompanying illustration. The story concerns Sam Morrey, a drifting adventurer in the American West who has spent ten years living freely—trapping sea otters, working occasional jobs, and avoiding commitment. The visible text establishes that Morrey, now twenty-six and feeling aimless despite his freedom, experiences a pivotal moment outside a San Francisco saloon when he encounters a ship called the Foxtail, suggesting this vessel will become his life's new purpose. The illustration depicts what appears to be sailors and workers near a vessel on a dock or shore.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
by L. V. PIDGEON AM MORREY was never too certain how he got himself mixed up with the Foxtail, nor how it changed his life from an easy, drifting adventure to one of some toil and dedication. In the ten years since he’d come West at sixteen, he had seen strange things happen to other men—trail-blazers turned into shopkeepers and farmers. He’d seen them married one by one to some great purpose, like digging gold or plowing earth for crops. Sam had no heart for it. He’d kept store once—even tended school in St. Louis for a while till the fever near killed him. He’d come West then, free for the canoe and Kanakas and | Riding free and wild, Sam Morrey hadn't paid ‘much | for his ich Maybe now, at last, he must setile the | full account.... Sa (Ws SSS SS seam the sea otter along the Monterey coast and the channel islands to the south. He had his freedom and money from the pelt and, at intervals, he had the wild, free run of San Francisco | while his want and money held out. Still, at twenty-six, a seed of dis- content was stirring. He was a pur- poseless man. And it was on a certain damp, wind-blown evening while he was standing feeling whisky-sad in front of Flood and O’Brien’s saloon on Washington Street, that the change took place. He saw the Foxtail, which in itself and at the time however, was not enough. It was a grand sight, though; flying asa pews trophy on the hand ey + Zh We. i. ‘ t a ~ aA a pity ua ule. were (CO