Western Story Magazine, May 12, 1934 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

Cowboy Samson upon the stalking redmen, had de- coyed them out of the creek bot- tom, making them think, in the blackness of a windy spring night, that he was a small but effective fighting force. How he had led them over ridge and gulch and down tim- ber, until his hat was shot from his head and his horse shot from under him. How, with two bullets in him and his last four rounds of shells, he had crawled around to their rear, while they were hunting him, and demoralized them completely by a new and ferocious attack. And how Shawnee Creek had lived in peace thereafter. It was a wild story; and Besple living in safe, snug homes didn’t be- lieve it, and remarked what impossi- ble tales came out of the West, and where would anybody get all that ammunition, anyhow? But Bascom had an uncle, very old now, who had been one of the Shawnee Creek set- tlers, and he knew that every word of the tale was true. Young Lew Schraber had been bringing in a freight load of supplies when he saw the Indians coming in the dusk. He had broken open a crate of small arms, then flung upon a lead horse the saddle which most freighters carried for rounding up their graz- ing stock. Yes, Bascom knew the truth of it all. He slumped dejectedly in his saddle as his broncho plodded across the alkali flats that stretched south to the rolling grass lands of Indio County. Ever since he could re- member, he had dreamed of the day when he would get him a job with the heroic Lew Schraber. And now, because of Lafe Hunt, he had lost it. Bascom wondered miserably why Hunt had it in for him. The cow- boy had long realized that his size and strength were a handicap in the only work he liked to do. He could 57 not seem to learn how to handle his unwelcome endowments. He threw his rope too far, and drove his spurs too deep, and burned a brand too long. He always sat back on a lariat too hard and fast—he’d lost track of the number of bovine necks he’d broken—and he could not join in the rough-house play of the ranch hands for fear of crippling some- body. Bascom cursed his superhuman strength, and watched with lack- luster eyes a rider coming across the flats at a steady jog. A voice came through the white heat, rousing him. “Hello, there, Bascom! You asleep in your saddle?” The gaze of the cowboy cleared. “Well, Duke Jones, if it ain’t you! Where’d you drop from?” “Natchez County,” replied the other with laconic brevity. ““Duke”’ Jones had not been so named be- eause of any pretentions to titled rank, but from the fact that he had a pair of very efficient fists. He was a dark man, rather under medium height, with a seamed, weather-bit- ten face, a pair of inscrutable eyes, and an enviable reputation. He was a dead shot; he was entirely fearless and utterly honest. The hero-wor- shiping Bascom admired him in- tensely. Duke asked bluntly: “What you headed in this direction for, lookin’ like the day after the big wind?”’ “T just got fired,” Bascom ex- plained, picking at the brads on his saddle horn to hide his eyes. “Schraber fire you?” “Yep.” “What for?” Duke pursued, get- ting out a battered slab of very black plug cut. “Have a chew?” “No, thanks. Makes me sick. Because my feet are all clubs and my fingers are all thumbs?) .o)cc co im