Western Story Magazine, May 12, 1934 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

86 permit to pack a gun. There’s.a coyote, up there, keepin’ me awake o nights.” There was no doubt but that Mel Wiggins was the sharpest man in Windy Basin. He studied Jade a long, long time in silence. At last he said: “About the gun—why, shore, just help yourself. mit needed. Just watch that you don’t shoot yourself no humans, that’s all we ask.” He said then, tapping stubby fingers on his scarred old desk: “Tell me some about yourself. An officer of the peace,” he added with a_half-apologetic shrug, “has got to be a little nosey, when it comes to strangers in our midst.” _ “Why, sure,” Jade said, although he turned cold, inside, beneath the sheriff’s hard black gaze. He told the story he had rigged up when ly- ing, all those feverish, suffering days and nights, alone in his mountain hide-out, while the cruel self-inflicted wounds that were to make another - man of him—a man who could come back to Windy Basin—were healing. When he had finished, Mel Wig- gins said: “Burn?” and indicated with a gesture Jade’s scarred face. Jade shook his head. . “Nope. Bear—she clawed me ’most to death up in the Never Summer, two year ago.” The sheriff nodded. “I seen an- other man that happened to. Changed his looks complete. Take you,*now; you might have been a likely-lookin’ fellow, before the ac- cident.” ADE’S heart was a slug of lead. Mel Wiggins knew, had recog- nized him. There was some- thing, after all, that Jade, in those careful, painstaking months had . overlooked. He felt the overwhelm- No per- Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine ing bitterness of defeat, and then Mel Wiggins said: “Well, good luck to you, Freed. Drop im again.” Jade’s eyes went wide. there for a moment quite incapable of action. He had been wrong. Mel hadn’t recognized him, after all. He’d passed the acid test, and he was safe. He could stay here, now, in Windy Basin, as long as he lived. He’d work, too, work his head off, make the old Circle Dot the finest place in all that country, the way his mother had always dreamed, sort of making up to her for the way he’d slipped. And that money he had stolen from the bank he would pay back anonymously, as soon as he could. The sheriff had forgotten him al- ready. Jade turned to go, then halted, as he heard the sheriff call to some one, evidently his deputy: “Hey, kid, drift on down to Mike’s and get Ab Ferris’s supper.” If he had known he would be shot for asking, Jade could not have held the question back that he blurted now. “Ferris—Ab Ferris, here in stony lonesome?” The sheriff turned that hard black gaze of his around. “Oh, you here yet? this fella, Ferris, eh?” Jade said: “Why, yes—that is, some jasper that I met up north told me to look him up. Figured that he might help me round up a little stock. Mel shook his head. “Sorry. I guess you'll have to get along with- out him. Ab’s been in State corral for better than two year. Just fetched him down last week, here, for another trial—the second time that he’s appealed his case. Fool way to spend his money. There ain’t no livin’ doubt but it was Ab who __ shot Jade _ Holloway and You know He stood im