Pulp Fiction, 1953 · page 28 of 116
Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is an interior story page from a pulp magazine, featuring the opening of a Western fiction story titled "The Deadly Second" by Henry Carlton. The page combines a dramatic illustration of a cowboy on horseback with a clock tower building in the background, alongside prose text. The story concerns Mattie Cameron, the sheriff's wife in a town called Painted Rock, who enters the Hunsaker store and senses pity in their eyes, suggesting some impending conflict or crisis tied to an approaching deadline marked by a clock. The narrative emphasizes tension and suggests a desperate situation unfolding in real time.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HENRY CARLTON It was bloody showdown hour in Painted Rock, and the sheriff's wife could only count off the seconds, and hope she’d won her hemmien battle to stay . The hands of the clock still had several long minutes to creep before they reached the deadline! HE knot under Mattie Cameron’s heart tightened as she entered the DE AN |) VY Hunsaker store and read the pity in | the eyes of Will Hunsaker. And when ' Pamela Hunsaker darted a quick look at her husband and began to chatter about the new 28 _ ginghams they’d just received from St. Louis, she knew it was true. . For the Hunsakers were her friends, a COMmichooks.c©