Western Story Magazine, May 12, 1934 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

Fugitive’s Return =o — ~©B9 rattling as their hurtling bodies flung about the floor. Jade’s grip still held, but he was weakening fast. This brute with whom he grappled outmatched him in both size and strength, and a red- streaked darkness was whirling in Jade’s brain from that first terrific blow the man had struck. It would be mimutes, only, Jade realized, till he was overpowered. There was one chance, however, that he might take. Hf he released his hold upon the gun, and could take the punish- ment from its flailing barrel for long enough to grasp the fellow’s hairy throat and squeeze the fight out of his gullet, he still might win. Jade did not stop to weigh the pros and cons. He suddenly released his grip upon the fellow’s wrist, and his own brown fingers flashed for the fellow’s throat. Taken unaware, the burly creature choked and spluttered, wrenched and writhed. He could not free himself. But now he raised the gun. It rose and fell, and rose and fell. With each succeeding blow, Jade thought his very brains must seatter out upon the floor, but still by sheer grim will he clung, as a fine breed of hunting dog will keep its fangs deep-buried in its adversary’s throat, long after the dog, itself, is done. Quite subconsciously, Jade knew when the man, whose throat his fin- gers pressed, was finished. He didn’t really see the big hulk jerk spas- modically and fall back limp, or hear the gun, arrested in mid-swing, fall clattering to the floor. He knew though, presently, that - the girl was bending over him, strok- ing his brow with cool, soft fingers. He told her thickly: “Get that gun before the feller | 39> comes to life, and—— She smiled at him. “TI have, though there’s not much chance that he'll come to for hours. I thought for a moment he was dead. He isn’t though, but most completely out.” Then Jade smiled back at her. ‘“’That’s fine,” he whispered huskily. Sx glad I happened by here when The girl’s smile vanished and left her blue eyes dark. : “Thank you,” she told him simply, “thank you a million times.” And then she sighed and looked sad- der, so Jade thought, than any woman he had ever seen—even than his mother, when she would speak, sometimes, about his dad. “Ym afraid,’ the girl went on, “that it won’t help a lot. Alf— that’s this beast you just knocked out—isn’t so easy whipped, and there’s Sam Hugis, too. They’re both insisting that I marry them— when they know—know all the time —TI can’t.” A hot tear splashed on Jade’s scarred face. A sudden wave of ten- derness welled in him. “Ellen,” he said, forgetting for just a moment that he was Jim Freed, forgetting he was a stranger, — “they'll never bother you again, now that I’m back.” Bent on the inner terror of her own thoughts, the girl paid small attention to Jade’s words. Jade asked her gently: pappy dead?” Her eyes went wide with some faint flicker of surprise, then dulled to lifelessness again. “Two years,” she told him. Jade sat up, pushing away the girl’s restraining hands. He spoke his thoughts aloud. “Seems funny —though I reckon things have changed, these last three years— but I never knew a lone girl to be bothered hereabouts,.. Wellthere’s.. “Your |