Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

10 | FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES (Continued from page 8) no matter where it happened to be. He was merely out to get some quick money, and let the boneyards fill up as they may. He had nothing but contempt. for railroad build- ers—but great respect for the money they earned. To him, a tracklayer was the lowest form of humanity, except when he paid an exorbitant price for a drink of Malloy’s | special rotgut. But Malloy was an honest stakeholder, as he had proved many times. Providing he got his five percent. When the track-town became Benton, Wyoming, the feudists, Mink and Welch, ‘resumed their private war. But it did not last long. Jed Mink, armed with a .45, and getting weary of the whole business, settled the matter by shooting to death the un- armed Pike Welch. The fact that there had been bad blood between the two for so long made it necessary for a hastily summoned coroner’s jury to decide it was a matter of self-defense.’ Hell on Wheels was a, broad- minded place at all times. That evening, as the dead Mike Welch’s friends made arrangements for a_-fine funer- al the next morning, Jed Mink’s faction. happily collected their bet winnings from the stakeholder, Big Tim Malloy. Hé cheer- fully paid out approximately $15,000—after deducting his legitimate fee—to the lucky ones who had bet that Welch would wind up in the boneyard before Mink did. The following morning, a Sunday, gave the defunct foreman’s friends a chance to give their champion a fitting burial. Acquir- ing, for the purpose, a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a mule, from the local butcher, the mourners placed the body in a long box | and placed it on the cart. While one of the number went to find some rope to make fast the coffin for its ride through some mountainous country to the town’s boneyard, a. few miles away, the other mourners repaired into Big Tim Mal- loy’s saloon to drown part of their sorrow at losing both their bets and their ‘friend. As the rope procurer was gone quite a while, the burial party got fairly well or- ganized. QOrations were made, and _ toast after toast was offered in memory of Mike Welch. The mule, left free at the hitchrack, got tired of waiting. Pulling his macabre: burden, he slowly ambled off toward the hills. Two hours elapsed before the mourn- ers realized that the cart, with its coffin, was missing. And, what was the sense of going to the boneyard if you had nothing to bury? Joined by the rope getter, who finally came back, minus a rope, the party resumed ‘their drinking, in touching tribute to the departed friend; who had now departed in more ways than one. VENING had arrived, then darkness, by the time anybody thought it might be fittin’ to go out and look for the mule, the cart, and Welch. A quick check with the mule’s owner in- formed them that the beast had returned to its home a few hours before sundown, pull- ing. the cart, but definitely minus the long box containing the deceased foreman. “Now, if you was a mule,” asked one puzzled mourner of another, after the group had once again gathered at Malloy’s har, “what would you:do if you wanted to get. rid af a coffin on a cart hitched to you?” “Don’t rightly know.” came the answer. “Let’s ask Slim Loper. He’s more like a mule than any ofthe rest of us.’ When. asked the w eighty question, Slim: Loper ‘allowed as how he would pull the burden up the mountain road: until he came’ to a spot where the unfastened coffin would. just slide off, and down into a deep gully, under its own power. Then he’d head for the home barn. When it was proved, the following morn- ing, that Slim’s mule-like thinking was cor- rect—the long box, lid partly off, had been. sighted from the road by an early rising farmer on his way, into town. with produce. Slim modestly isclaimed any credit. “Hell,” he said. ‘ ‘Any fool jackass wou ld’ ve thought of that.” _ Pike Welch’s friends decided to let the body rest in the deep gully until the follow- ing Sunday—the best day for a nice funeral. So long as Welch had to go to the bone- | yard, he rhight as well wait until the thing could be done up proper-like. The demise of Pike Welch left a void in the daily, and nightly, life of his killer, Jed Mink. Becoming bored, Jed found it neces- sary to pick someone else with which to quarrel. He made the slight error of pick- ing on a man who was very quick and handy with a knife.: By the time Mirk learned of »his mistake, he was dead, the dire and fatal result of a jagged opening in his throat. (Continued on page 111) cConiiclboooks.c© inn